During Tony Norman's discussion at Cal he referenced the popularity of dog stories in Pittsburgh. This trend has a lot to do with the death of police dog Rocco, whose funeral was attended by over 1200 people. I am admittedly not a dog person, and tend to find these stories uninteresting. Tony mentioned that it hard to compete with the sports page. Pittsburgh is a sports town, so it makes sense that a lot of the readers go for the sports section. I also understand that a lot of people have pets or are dog lovers and that it is important to cater to your readers, but I can't help but feel that maybe our values are skewed. Should a story about a dog attacking a teen have more priority than say a drug bust? Should a story about the death of a dog, even a brave dog like Rocco, have more coverage than the murder of a human. I suppose at the end of the day its all about how many eyes are hitting your page.
Tony Norman writes for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette spoke, and is someone whom I admire. When I heard that he was speaking at Cal I knew it was something I didn't want to miss. Tony discussed a variety of topics from his personal thoughts on the Pittsburgh Police Force to tips for young writers in the audience.
One of the more interesting moments of the evening came when Tony put himself in the shoes of a dictator, and said that he would only have one totalitarian rule, and that would be for people to read the classics. Tony thinks that people should be reading a book every month or so and that the fact that this is not the case is detrimental to society. As someone who loves the classics and reading in general this really rang true for me. I consider myself to be well read for my age; I count Kurt Vonnegut, James Joyce, Hunter S. Thompson, and Ray Bradbury among my favorite authors. Tony said that if the deepest thing you think about this year is True Detective then you're pathetic. Pathetic sounded a bit harsh, considering that most of my friends and family would fall within this spectrum. But his statement made an impact on me, not only because of the aggressive nature of it, but also because its true. He went on to say that as a parent one of the things he is most proud of is that he has raised children who read. |
AuthorJosh Herman Archives
May 2015
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