This pissed me off, for a few reasons.

If someone wants to start a reporting career in today's industry, they need to be fully aware of its pitfalls. The pay is awful. I was always told it would be awful in journalism school. Teachers are paid better. It is even worse now that the MBAs behind every publication have found ways to cut costs because anyone who can blog can -- in their minds -- be a journalist. Truth: I am paid less now, as a reporter with 15 years experience than I was a year out of college, ink still drying on my journalism degree.

You get into the career because it's a borderline adventurous lifestyle. You get access to people and places most don't. There's a thrill to breaking news or just telling a good story.

Why teach students to code? Because only being able to report, write and edit makes you as worthless as the guy who thought a bachelors in creative writing would be great preparation for a dying job market. Coding -- even the kind this writer bitches about -- is not a waste of time. It's an additional skill. It is a tool to fall back on when journalism as we know it really dies and there's no need for reporters -- the kid down the block with a blog (that he built because he knows code) has just eliminated your job.

That's a bit dramatic. But in seriousness, I would argue there are not enough students -- in every field -- being taught 21st century skills. For someone in communications, those skills might involve coding to be able to develop UX and UI prototypes (high demand). A new branch of journalism is evolving -- visual journalism -- that touches upon design and semiotics to communicate stories. I can see where business schools or scientific fields would benefit from teaching students data visualization.

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan said the medium is the message. The information medium has changed drastically. Think of the way someone consumed stock quotes in 1980 and today. Our media are highly visual, interactive. In 1980, you look at numbers; today you see charts of performance over time and can interact with that detail second by second, maybe even learn why a stock rose or dipped with the click of a mouse or swipe of a finger.

So yeah, this article presented itself to me as woefully ignorant, just not about the state of the industry, but the state of the media, something she now possesses a graduate degree in. (And I could care less about the fact she's writing for Atlantic; every new journalist will come to learn they'll write 100 mediocre stories for every gem. They may never write a story that earns them recognition. There is a lot of grunt work to be done before glory can be hand, and sometimes that never comes.)