Editor shares success tips
by Adam Ward
As seen in February 5, 2010 Utah Statesman
http://www.usu-tube.com/view/full_story/5800726/article-Editor-shares-success-tips?Joseph Cannon said in 10 years the newspaper business will be run differently. He said the only newspapers that will survive are those that cater to a specific audience.
Deseret news editor Joseph Cannon gave four tips on how to be successful in the future, saying it was his “final lecture.”
Cannon, who spoke Wednesday at USU for the Huntsman School of Business Dean’s Convocation, said these tips are ones he wished he had heard when he was in college.
The first tip he gave was to never underestimate the role of serendipity in anyone’s life. He said when he was in middle school, he played trumpet in the band. Though he enjoyed it, the teacher told him to try the French horn, which is a much more difficult instrument. He picked up the French horn, and because he became quite good at it, he was able to get a full-ride scholarship to BYU.
If the teacher hadn’t suggested he tried the French horn, he would’ve never been able to attend a school that expensive and would have just gone to a community college in California, he said. His scholarship to BYU enabled him to go to law school and receive a great education.
His second tip was that fortune favors the prepared mind. He said if students are open and prepared for the possibility of good things coming in their life, it will bring good things. He said he once met the president of a steel company as he was working on an environmental board for the government, which was attempting to restrict emissions from steel companies. The president told him that it would kill the steel industry, to which Cannon said to call him if the Geneva steel mine in Utah was ever going out of business, and he may be able to do something.
A few years later the president called him and asked if he wanted to purchase the steel mine. Cannon purchased the mine and became the CEO of Geneva steel.
Cannon said his third tip was to read. He was a partner for a large law firm and was on the hiring board for the firm. He said that as the new generations of lawyers came to the firm, he noticed their writing was becoming worse. He said this frustrated him, because he considers writing to be an extremely important skill and to be a good writer people need to read.
He said that books such as “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” were both essential books that must be read in order to be successful. Cannon also said people need to put down their text messages and read a book. Taking time to read through a novel will allow people to understand it more clearly and get something out of it.
The fourth tip given by Cannon was to avoid all the noise in the world. He said it seems like everyone constantly has headphones in their ear or the television on while they’re sleeping and this bombardment of noise is distracting people from quality thinking. He said having quiet time to just sit and think will help people be more virtuous and figure out many things in life. It’s impossible to do this with all the noise in everyday life, he said.
Cannon then took questions about the newspaper industry and other general business questions that he had experience with. He said the newspaper industry is falling behind, and in 10 years it will be nothing like it is today. He said the only papers that’ll survive will be the ones that have a certain niche, where the readers won’t go away because it’s the only place to get certain news. He said the industry may be more like “daily magazines” rather than a daily news, with each newspaper having a particular set of people the content is meant for.
Cannon attended BYU for his undergraduate degree in political science and graduate degree in law school. After graduating he went on to do many different jobs, including working for the Environmental Protection Agency; being a partner in Pillsbury Madison & Sutro, a law firm that specializes in environmental and administrative law; being the CEO of Geneva steel and, now, the news editor of The Deseret News.
– adam.ward@aggiemail.usu.edu
