* Apologies to B. Traven and
John Huston
It used to
be, and perhaps still is, a given for any good and successful organization to
have a mix of older people and youth.
The youth bring enthusiasm and energy, while the older members temper their energy with wisdom and experience.
The experienced would mentor (often informally) the young to help them
understand the tasks before them and the ways those tasks were best handled. They would pass along things that could never
be found in the instructions, training, or classes the young might have had.
Now it seems even
as the wisdom of the old is celebrated, it is pushed aside by the desire for
instant change, even when instant change is not necessary. We can look at almost any endeavor where the
good-looking youth is pushed forward to be the boss, almost always at the cost
of experience.
I read an
article the other day on how journalists coming into the trade were previously not
valued until they had 10 to 20 years of experience. In the old model, college was not a prerequisite
for journalism. Now we expect college to
replace those years of experience and we push the young graduates into the
limelight as soon as they impress someone.
The alternative is to take someone who has influence in politics and
thrust them into the spokesperson role for the network, again without a great
deal of experience in the trade.
I wonder, in
either case, how much judgement they bring into the role?
Perhaps, if
the current journalists were into self-inspection this would be a concern they would address, but
I suspect self-inspection is not a strength of today's journalists.
Although not directly related, I recommend this post by Scott Adams, A
Lesson in Cognitive Dissonance.
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