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On May 30, Thomas L. Friedman will serve as the keynote speaker at the university's 160th commencement celebration. This week, Friedman spoke to The Review in a phone interview. Readers can find this three-time Pulitzer Prize winner's point of view in his twice-weekly column on the pages of the New York Times and in one of his five critically-acclaimed books. Graduates are entering an unstable period in terms of the economy and foreign affairs. What advice would you give to students at such an uncertain time?
I will delve into that in my talk and I don't want to preempt that but just some general advice, but more specifically if I was talking to you and you called me up and said "Gosh, I have a journalism degree now and it's a really uncertain journalism market and an uncertain economy," I would say this is a good time to widen your skills. The market is going to be really small in whatever you're interested in doing. This is probably a good time to go to graduate school or try to intern somewhere or from a journalistic point of view, assigning yourself abroad. Do Teach for America, do the Peace Corps, do something that will broaden your skills, so when the economy does turn around you can kind of meld that with your academic background and be better prepared for the work force.
Do you have any general opinions about the character of our generation?
I happen to have a daughter that's a junior in college and one that graduated two years ago and did Teach for America. I've always said their generation is so much more idealistic than they should be in the world we've given you and I think that's really impressive. I think you're a quieter generation in some ways than the '60s generation, but no less idealistic it seems to me, and I've been really impressed by the willingness of young people today to go abroad, try new things even in this kind of crazy world post-9/11. So, I think this is a generation that really wants to be a part of the solution, but I think they're coming into a world where the problems are so big that they kind of don't know where to get a handle on things and what to grab onto first. I think that's why they look to Obama, and I think that's a really good thing. He's someone who I think they hope will clear a path for them to make their contribution as it were. He's been obviously burdened with this incredibly terrible economy and that's a tough thing for him too.
Where do you foresee America moving in terms of the economy?
I talk about that in my speech, but what I will tell you is that what my speech is about is why the crisis of 2009 was a double of crises. It was a moment where the market and Mother Nature both kind of hit a wall and we need to find a different way to grow. My speech will be about that and where your generation can fit in that process.
You are an advocate of alternate forms of energy. Here at the university, we recently opened an energy institute and were given a large grant to fund research about alternative forms of energy. Why do you think this is such an important topic for students to understand and incorporate into their futures?
Unfortunately, that gets right to the heart of my speech and that would be stealing a little of my thunder. What the speech is really about is how the market kind of hit a wall in 2009 and why and how its really important for your generation to develop a way to grow that will be sustainable for both the market and Mother Nature. That's about all I can say right now.
Why did you decide to come to our university to speak? I get a lot of invitations to go to different places that just tickle my fancy, and so there's no rhyme or reason to it. I'm giving another commencement speech this weekend. I get many, many requests and I do a couple every year.
With the growth of a lot of Asian countries, many have predicted the demise of America. Do you think that's a legitimate threat that students should be fearful about? I'm not so worried about that yet. I think we're a ways from that. I'm not there.
Do you have any predictions about the direction that the western world's interaction with the Muslim world is heading in?
I think that now that we have a president named Barack Hussein Obama, who has Muslims in his family, and I think has an intuitive feel and understanding for the Muslim world and wants to have America interact with it in an equal and kind of mutually dignified and mutually accountable way, I think we have a chance for a much better relationship.
As a journalist, how do you respond to the death of newspapers?
We're at such a transition point I just don't know. I think there will always be a New York Times. I think it will always come out in a newspaper form, but I don't know if it's going to be half online, only online, some on dead trees, I don't know.
Is there anything else you want students to know?
I've been really lucky as a journalist and was able to cover some really fascinating stories from the Arab-Israeli conflict to the end of the Cold War to the rise of the Dot Coms, and journalism has been a great vehicle for me to do that in. When I was your age and people said "You're going to be journalist, how are you going to make any money?" I kind of said "I don't know, but I think when you do what you love and you love what you do, you'll always be successful." And so that's the first thing to ask yourself as a young person today, "what do I really love to do?" If you figure that out and do it, then you'll bring passion to it. I'm a really big believer in that.
How much are you being paid to speak at our commencement?
You'll have to ask the university.
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