Jon Katz

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This article is about the technology and dog writer. For the queer studies professor, see Jonathan D. Katz. For the actor, see Jonathan Katz. For the historian, see Jonathan Ned Katz.
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Jonathan Katz (born 1947) is a U.S. journalist and writer. He is mostly known for his contributions to the online magazine HotWired and the technology website Slashdot as well as for his books on dogs.

Contents

[edit] Career

[edit] Traditional media

He initially worked as a reporter and editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, and later as executive producer of the CBS Morning News. He wrote a successful series of mystery novels centered around the character Kit DeLeeuw, a former Wall Street financier turned private investigator, based in the fictional Rochambeau, New Jersey. His media criticism, columns and book reviews appeared in such periodicals as Rolling Stone and New York (he was a contributing editor to both magazines), Wired, GQ, and The New York Times.

[edit] Online

Expressing disenchantment with "traditional media", he joined HotWired, the online version of Wired magazine, to which he contributed articles as a pundit and media critic.

[edit] Slashdot.org

In 1999, Katz left HotWired to join Slashdot.org. Many of his contributions to Slashdot were focused on the youth subculture of geeks and social misfits. In the article Voices from the Hellmouth, written shortly after the Columbine school shootings in Littleton, Colorado (near Denver), he commented on the relationship of the shootings with the angst and social isolation of teenage geeks within high school subcultures.[1]

[edit] Controversy

His writing was frequently not well-received by Slashdot readers.[2] Among the charges often levelled at him were that he was not an authentic geek and was seeking to co-opt and sensationalize geek subculture, that his writings (especially those on technical topics) were uninformed gibberish, and that he had an unhealthy fixation on the Columbine shootings. In the Slashdot subculture, variants on the phrase "in this post-Columbine world" are occasionally used with satirical intent, and are regarded as typical of Katz.

There was a large controversy when Katz posted an article about an e-mail he believed to be from an Afghan teenager named "Junis", writing to him via the newly-restored Internet. Katz never disclosed the original e-mail, but it was an evident hoax and probably a parody designed to fool him. According to Katz, Junis wrote his e-mail from "his ancient Commodore computer", which he had 'dug up' and was now using to download movies, pornography, and MP3s thanks to the recent liberation of Afghanistan.[3] This would be near-impossible with the Commodore 64's hardware and software specifications, and points out Katz's lack of technical knowledge about computers.

In 2002 he wrote one last article on Slashdot, about his dog books, but many readers rejected it as self-promotion.[4]

[edit] Writing on Dogs

Katz' writing on dogs began in 2001 with A Dog Year: Twelve Months, Four Dogs, and Me and continuing with The New Work of Dogs and The Dogs of Bedlam Farm. Plans to turn A Dog Year into a movie, starring Jeff Bridges as Katz, were announced in November 2006.[5] His columns on dogs and on rural life now appear regularly on Slate.com, and his latest book, "A Good Dog", was published in late September 2006.

Katz has described dogs as having been part of his life since fourth grade, and began writing about them after taking in a difficult border collie. He has written extensively on the way we train dogs, arguing that most approaches fail because they are too inflexible, and because--as dog owners--we over-anthropomorphize our companion animals: "we give them too much credit, make them too complex, muddying our communications" by treating them as "soul mates" rather than understanding and respecting their animal nature.[6] "I can't imagine life without a dog," Katz said in a 2002 interview. "I don't think dogs are substitutes for people, but I must confess I often find them more reliable."[7]

[edit] List of publications

[edit] Kit DeLeeuw series

  • Death by Station Wagon (1993)
  • The Family Stalker (1994)
  • The Last Housewife (1995)
  • The Father's Club (1996)
  • Death Row (1998)

[edit] Other Publications

  • Sign Off (1991)
  • Virtuous Reality (1997)
  • Running to the Mountain: A Midlife Adventure (1999)
  • Geeks (2000)
  • A Dog Year (2001)
  • The New Work of Dogs (2003)
  • The Dogs of Bedlam Farm (2004)
  • Katz on Dogs (2005)
  • A Good Dog (2006)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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