Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Matt Richtel sat down with The Piedmont Highlander staff to discuss journalism on Tuesday Oct. 20.

Richtel met with the journalism class between speaking to students at the Safe Driving Assembly and talking to parents at the Piedmont Education Speaker Series about his book, A Deadly Wandering.

Richtel highlighted the beauty and importance of deadlines in journalistic writing. He said that having a deadline forces a writer to let go of the piece and finish.

“The enemy of writing is perfectionism,” Richtel said.

When the class asked Richtel if he had ever known any journalists who lack talent, he said that he believes everyone is good at something. He recommended that high school students follow their passions now and worry about discovering or developing what they are good at later.

“[You] need to find a balance of passion and ability,” he said.

When asked about what separates great journalists from good ones, Richtel gave two main responses. The first was to get the facts right. The second was to listen and write with understanding. He warned against interviewing from a position of moral superiority.

“Humble yourself,” Richtel said. “Everyone has a point of view.”

Richtel also said that journalistic opinion writing should be based primarily in fact rather than pure opinions. When someone writes from a grounded position and one of truth, people are more likely to listen, he said.

In addition to working as a journalist for the New York Times, Richtel has written three books including the nonfiction work, A Deadly Wandering. He said these novels served as an outlet for him to express his ideas and use his own writing style, helping Richtel maintain journalistic style in formal news stories.

In A Deadly Wandering, Richtel looked at the effects of distracted driving, which he discussed with the sophomore and junior classes during the Safe Driving Assembly.

He talked about how our primitive survival instincts lead us to check our phones immediately after a notification.

Richtel discovered that our instincts tell us that a text message could be a threat, and we are thus automatically compelled to check it.

Richtel then elaborated on how we as a society use our phones as an escape route out of uncomfortable situations. He talked about how when he is irritated with his wife, he will instinctively pull out his phone to check the score of the Giants game.

Richtel also stressed the importance of striking a balance between a job and a family, and work and rest. He said knowing one’s own limits is important to efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace because rest and exercise lead to better decision making.

“The more you stimulate yourself with information, the more you don’t allow your brain to slow down,” Richtel said.