Crusading, connecting, departing: Thanks to all.(Column)

Byline: Jane Eisner

I'm in my fourth year teaching a seminar at the University of Pennsylvania on the media's role in American society, and here's the astonishing thing: Students this semester bring up subjects we didn't talk about a few short years ago.

Blogging. Jon Stewart. Whether newspapers should charge for content on the Internet. These issues didn't escape the attention of just me, a middle-age prof still yearning for the days of Edward R. Murrow. Not too long ago, they weren't on the radar screens of smart Ivy League kids, either.

Now they are an integral part of the media landscape _ until the next new thing comes along. That is how swiftly, profoundly and unpredictably the business of daily journalism is changing.

Reacting to that unpredictability has …