As I posted elsewhere, Abraham Lincoln did not formally study law and educated himself by reading. There can be exceptional people who are qualified for a sophisticated job because they have unique qualities that don't require formal educations.
Except that...in that time and place, the 19th century American frontier,
that's how it was done. Those who aspired to be lawyers essentially apprenticed with experienced lawyers. Reading law was a part of that process. Lincoln may have been an exceptional individual, but the path by which he became a lawyer was not exceptional.
This dovetails with other points made in this thread: in new fields, opportunities are wide-open. Dogma hasn't been established; major problems have yet to be worked out; innovation and new ideas are frequent.
@Deus Ex Machiato mentioned autonomous vehicles; I spent more than a quarter-century in cybersecurity. When I started, there were no degree programs in the field, nor certifications, and very few books about it. For the first 15 years or so, it was great. I learned a lot by solving a variety of problems...and by learning from researchers and colleagues. There was no other way to do it. I didn't think I had all the answers and had to learn as best I could, sometimes innovating myself. I became a pioneer in one particular branch of cybersecurity (third-party assurance). About the time I went into executive management, the field started changing. The first sign was increased specialization. Degree programs sprang up, particularly from for-profit institutions but also from some more regular universities. The field started becoming a little dogmatic and ossified, causing some to chase their tails by repeatedly having to solve already-solved problems. It became harder for newcomers to break into the field (at least on the defensive side of the equation). But none of that meant that expertise was unimportant. It was and is very important, especially in dealing with certain types of systems. For example, no electric or gas or water utility is going to let a 15-year-old amateur anywhere near the defense of their critical systems. There are many amateur
attackers, but they are trying to tear things down and rip people off, not build them up.
And that last sentence has become the story of CBS News as well. It's easy...and, for some, more fun and profitable...to tear things down. It's a lot harder to build them up. Bari Weiss can be as critical as she wants. But she didn't take into account the
practical effects of her demands and their timing, imperiling the ability of her organization to actually
have a broadcast and to report. That's because she didn't know what she was doing.
Scott Pelley did Bari Weiss a favor by ignoring her directives. If those directives had been followed, there wouldn't have been a 60 Minutes that night, and all hell would've broken loose. If Bari Weiss had survived
that, then whatever credibility remained at CBS News would've been blown to bits. As it is, she's looking more like a destroyer than a builder.
By the way, there have been presidents of CBS News (Richard Salant was one) who weren't journalists. But they knew enough to know when they should listen to the practitioners on their staff. Respect is earned; some of it comes reciprocally from respecting the expertise of those who work for you.
www.usmagazine.com
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