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The urge to save whales, turtles and mountain gorillas always benefits from the emotional impact humans feel when a species appears to be on its way out.

But when it comes to journalists, who’d've thought anyone outside the media world would care, never mind a Labour MP.

But Midlands MP, Mike O’Brien is bidding for a journalism conservation prize by accusing Trinity Mirror of “serious attacks on news, journalists and journalism” with its plans to cut jobs in Coventry and Birmingham.

It’s tough times making newspapers profitable and an alternative to keep quality journalism viable is, well, to forget the profit bit. Such is the idea of MinnPost, a Minnesota-based, not-for-profit news site that keeps journalism alive through reader donations rather than advertising alone, which - as founder Joel Kramer discusses on The Marketing Edge podcast - is no longer willing to fund quality news content.

Adopting a journalist to save them from extinction may not yet be necessary, but if ordinary people and MPs care enough to back their news gatherers that suggests a healthy society at work.

Amid global financial meltdown, there’s hope!

At least that’s what Albert Maruggi says in his latest blog posting. I like Maruggi’s boundless optimism (listen to his Marketing Edge podcast and you can actually hear it, in spades!) and wry take on the shame seeping out of Wall Street right now in his Twittering.

But he’s got a good point. The financial services industry could do far worse (and it has done) than taking on some of the principles of social media - openness and transparency.

But while corporate America is still, as Maruggi suggests, in the early adopter stage of using social media, where does that leave the rest of us? Maybe it’s time we started to lead the States instead of taking the lead from them.