November 8th, 2005, 4:12 am

Attn: Newspaper.com. Teenage bloggers grow up.

A comment that Barry Hollander made at last week’s SPJ Cyberethics seminar (see post) has stuck in my craw: “Most blogs are teenage girls writing really bad poetry.”

To wit — that’s true.

But teenage girls — and boys, to a lesser extent — grow up. Dismissing the current incarnation of a medium seems a bit like knocking the first ever book. (It takes too many monks to produce! Who reads Latin? Heck, who reads!)

What we aren’t realizing is this: A generation of teenagers possess basic online skills that many journalists lack: the ability to produce their own websites; write content and edit images.

I’m seeing a generational divide that has profound implications for journalism: a generation of teenagers who can, and a generation of “adults” who can’t.

The web of a teenager is intensely personal: it’s fast, fun and dynamic — it’s immediate gratification from iTunes; real-time conversations happening with people around the globe, posting images as they happen, networking with everyone, being able to offer one’s opinion on everything that’s online - instantly.

When we — as adults who run newspapers — can’t provide that experience that teenagers expect from the web, we render our sites irrelevant. When we — as adult journalists — don’t have the technical skills that teenagers do, we render our organizations impotent; unable to compete by creating compelling online journalism.

Teenagers, as I’ve noted, grow up. There will soon be a talented cadre of content producers; poised to tell stories online. But will this generation be anxious to work for Newspaper.com; the outdated relic from their youth? Or will they perhaps imagine better ways to tell their stories online?