“It gets better,” is the key message of an incrediblesocial media campaign to support gay youths who face bullying, but it’s also a phrase I found myself using on Tuesday. That’s when 15 of my former colleagues and friends at the Lansing State Journalwere laid off.

There will be new opportunities for these talented folks. It was scary when I made the choice to leave my job as a reporter at the LSJ. Change is unsettling, but it’s also empowering and exciting to try new things. It really does get better.

I think the news industry will get better too.

For too long, too many media organizations resisted change. By the time they realized change was coming anyway, they faced a tsunami. The casualties have been high. The 15 jobs lost Tuesday at the LSJ – part of 700 job cuts by parent company Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher – are a stark reminder that the upheaval isn’t over.

But after several years of doom and gloom, there are encouraging signs. My students at the Michigan State University School of Journalism are excited about the prospect of working at online news outlets or of doing multimedia stories for newspapers, radio and TV stations. Experiments like Patch.com, which launched news sites across southeast Michigan and elsewhere across the country, have hired hundreds of reporters to do community journalism. ProPublica and the Center for Michigan are experimenting with nonprofit models to do journalism.

This is exciting. These folks don’t fear the uncertainty facing all of the communications industry. They’re embracing it and trying to find better ways to tell stories, share information and connect with audiences.

I’m sure some of these ideas will fail. But it will get better.