The pioneering photojournalism Web site, The Digital Journalist, is in need of operating funds. For the first time, they are soliciting donations. I encourage loyalists to consider lending a hand to the site, where I have been a contributor for years.

Here is a message from TDJ's founding editor Dirck Halstead, with instructions for pledges:

"The Digital Journalist has been online producing our monthly magazine, about visual journalism, for 12 years. During that time we have presented the memorable work of some of the greatest photojournalists in the world, while offering opportunities for publication to many new photographers. Our columns and reviews have taken a 360-degree look at the industry, and predicted much of the upheaval that has taken place as the media around us have been buffeted by the shifting winds of technology, and now, a crippling economic downturn.

"So we are asking you, our loyal readers, numbering more than 10,000, to help us raise these funds. Effective immediately, we have set up a PayPal link on The Digital Journalist and urgently ask for your pledges so that we can continue the work which will help us all. We have never solicited paid subscriptions, but these dire times call for dire measures."

Here's to a brighter New Year...

With a half-foot of downy white blanketing the Middle-Atlantic states and a roaring fire in the hearth, here's wishing everyone a healthy, cheer-filled holiday, and a prosperous, peaceful New Year.

The Friend household is especially proud this week: my wife, Nancy Paulsen, as reported in Publishers Weekly, was given her own children-and-young adult imprint at Penguin-Putnam, Nancy Paulsen Books.

Also...a fond farewell to Milorad Pavic, the boundary-breaking Serbian novelist (author of the enchantingly mystifying Dictionary of the Kazhars), who passed away this week at age 80.

And one final tip for last-minute holiday shoppers. This season's ideal gift book, recently published by Rodale, is a volume I worked on this past year with Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter and Robert Risko, along with esteemed colleagues David Harris, Martha Hurley, Feifei Sun, and Jon Kelly: Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire.