At the fine institution at which I am currently enrolled, many of the professors are often simply moonlighting, and are journalists by day.
Sometimes, I’m tempted to skip the first day of every class. We get the same warning every time and it usually goes something like:
“You know, you guys are entering the field in a very strange time. The newspapers are dying and everything is being moved to the web. Job cuts are happening every day! (and so on…)”
I think we are past the Chicken Little phase of the shift to online.
If I were a teacher I would simply focus on teaching every student how to transfer the storytelling used in writing to other mediums.
I would also argue that every market changes with technology. Unless you are going to start a publication, your job as a potential journalists is to equip yourself with as many skills as possible to get you hired. It pure laziness to simply dismiss new technology and methods.
Nearly every student signed up for journalism because they love to tell stories by writing (and the list of jobs an English degree gets you is short). The shift to online doesn’t change what you do, simply how you do it. There is no need to bombard students with a doom and gloom story. I already know the “problem”, help guide me to the solution.
After all that is what teaching is all about…right?