David D. Perlmutter is the new director of the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication effective June 30. He comes to Iowa from the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. Perlmutter is author of several books, including "Blog Wars." Watch him on The Daily Show. He explores the historical context of online social media, politics and society at PolicyByBlog. He also writes an academic careers column, P & T Confidential, in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The following is an interview with Perlmutter conducted in May. This is the third of four excerpts. (The telephone interview transcript has been edited for publication.)Q. At the beginning of any new trend, there are lots of unknowns. How do you see the changes coming in journalism?
A. It’s wrenching. If you read Tom Friedman’s “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” part of what I’m trying to tell students is you’ve got to think globally. You’ve got to think about the fact you’re in competition with the brightest graduates of colleges in China, India and Russia. What skills do you have that they don’t? What work ethic do you have that they don’t? What entrepreneurialism do you have that they don’t?
America doesn’t have a monopoly in technology or advanced development of the workplace anymore. Sometimes I think, in my critique of American society, is that we’re “tenderizing” our children to have their feelings not hurt by competition, or falling down or getting hurt or losing. We want them to avoid all pain and distress.
I think the economy they’re entering is one in which there’s going to be a lot of pain and distress, they’re going to have to compete pretty hard and they’re going to be knocked to the ground, they’re going to have pick themselves up and come back twice as hard.
If we raise a generation of kids who can’t even conceive of failure, then they’re going to fail once, then that’s going to become permanent because they won’t ever understand how to come back from failure. It’s part of a big package. It’s not “If we teach them this one thing then everything will be fine.” I just don’t believe that to be true anymore.
Let’s face it, if you graduated in 1965 with a degree in computer science you went to work for IBM and you pretty much expected you’d be working for IBM for 40 years and you’d get a gold watch and a pension and a thank you very much. Does anybody have that prospect anymore? I don’t know if our students want that. If you talk to an 18-year-old and say, “Would you work for the same company doing to same job for 45 years?" That’s not even in their mental apparatus to appreciate like that’s good. I don’t think they want that kind of job.
Q. Is the accelerating pace of change feeding fears of an “apocalyptic” end to journalism?
A. It seems apocalyptic when you’re in your 50s and you’ve been doing the same thing for many years. Our students are going to be the most likely to succeed in this new world. Let’s face it, when you’re 22, talk about adaptability, your body and mind are much more flexible than 40-somethings. I think they have the greatest chance of success in this world. Essentially they’re going run it, they’re going to determine what it is and they’re going to run it.
When I graduated, if I was going to go into the profession that was it. Maybe I went back to get a master’s degree, but a lot of times a master’s degree was something to put something on your corporate resume. I think of the idea of lifelong education of our students, maybe they’ll come back to us in five years for some more training. We have to create some more flexible models in academia; the 16-week course is something out of the Middle Ages. Maybe we have to have shorter courses and more workshops and pack two or three intensive tech courses into one semester. We have to look at all that. The university itself has to adapt. What I told our faculty and students, the bazaar is open. Let’s try anything and see whether it works. As long as it follows the laws of the state of Iowa and the regulations of the University of Iowa, I’m willing to give it a try.
That’s how you have success: that old cliché about how Thomas Edison discovered 9,999 ways not to make a light bulb. You’ve got to experiment, everybody in business knows that, everyone in science knows that experimental failure is part of success. Nobody ever discovered the next great invention by just trying it once. We have to have that spirit at schools of journalism and mass communication as they do in Silicon Valley.
A. It’s wrenching. If you read Tom Friedman’s “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” part of what I’m trying to tell students is you’ve got to think globally. You’ve got to think about the fact you’re in competition with the brightest graduates of colleges in China, India and Russia. What skills do you have that they don’t? What work ethic do you have that they don’t? What entrepreneurialism do you have that they don’t?
America doesn’t have a monopoly in technology or advanced development of the workplace anymore. Sometimes I think, in my critique of American society, is that we’re “tenderizing” our children to have their feelings not hurt by competition, or falling down or getting hurt or losing. We want them to avoid all pain and distress.
I think the economy they’re entering is one in which there’s going to be a lot of pain and distress, they’re going to have to compete pretty hard and they’re going to be knocked to the ground, they’re going to have pick themselves up and come back twice as hard.
If we raise a generation of kids who can’t even conceive of failure, then they’re going to fail once, then that’s going to become permanent because they won’t ever understand how to come back from failure. It’s part of a big package. It’s not “If we teach them this one thing then everything will be fine.” I just don’t believe that to be true anymore.
Let’s face it, if you graduated in 1965 with a degree in computer science you went to work for IBM and you pretty much expected you’d be working for IBM for 40 years and you’d get a gold watch and a pension and a thank you very much. Does anybody have that prospect anymore? I don’t know if our students want that. If you talk to an 18-year-old and say, “Would you work for the same company doing to same job for 45 years?" That’s not even in their mental apparatus to appreciate like that’s good. I don’t think they want that kind of job.
Q. Is the accelerating pace of change feeding fears of an “apocalyptic” end to journalism?
A. It seems apocalyptic when you’re in your 50s and you’ve been doing the same thing for many years. Our students are going to be the most likely to succeed in this new world. Let’s face it, when you’re 22, talk about adaptability, your body and mind are much more flexible than 40-somethings. I think they have the greatest chance of success in this world. Essentially they’re going run it, they’re going to determine what it is and they’re going to run it.
When I graduated, if I was going to go into the profession that was it. Maybe I went back to get a master’s degree, but a lot of times a master’s degree was something to put something on your corporate resume. I think of the idea of lifelong education of our students, maybe they’ll come back to us in five years for some more training. We have to create some more flexible models in academia; the 16-week course is something out of the Middle Ages. Maybe we have to have shorter courses and more workshops and pack two or three intensive tech courses into one semester. We have to look at all that. The university itself has to adapt. What I told our faculty and students, the bazaar is open. Let’s try anything and see whether it works. As long as it follows the laws of the state of Iowa and the regulations of the University of Iowa, I’m willing to give it a try.
That’s how you have success: that old cliché about how Thomas Edison discovered 9,999 ways not to make a light bulb. You’ve got to experiment, everybody in business knows that, everyone in science knows that experimental failure is part of success. Nobody ever discovered the next great invention by just trying it once. We have to have that spirit at schools of journalism and mass communication as they do in Silicon Valley.
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