Mark Pinsky, the former religion reporter at the Orlando Sentinel, thinks President-elect Obama should revive the Depression-era Federal Writers Project in an attempt to find paychecks for all those unemployed journalists out there. Pinsky should know; he got laid off this summer.

“Like Detroit’s troubled Big Three automakers, federal intervention to save the newspaper and magazine industries are highly problematic, at best. Ink-on-paper periodicals are never coming back, and it may be some time before the web can provide well-paying jobs with health benefits-if it ever will. Until then, providing some way to provide young journalists a way to get started, or displaced media workers a way to transition to new occupations, or to retirement, might help-and serve the nation in the process.”

h/t: Andrew Sullivan (actually, guest blogger Patrick Appel, who, it should be mentioned, is skeptical about the value of journalists working on Uncle Sam’s dime)