The Interview with Steve Dawson

Today we had a talk with Steve Dawson who is a sports anchor from Fox Sports ESPN.

 Dawson was a Chartered Tax Accountant, who after 10 years had begun doing to what he loved the most – journalism. He joined The Straits Times as a correspondent in 1999, scuttled across the Channel I News in 2003. Soon he was approached by ESPN Star Sports as a writer and presenter for the ESPN.

But today, Steve Dawson wasn’t exactly  giving us tips on how to interview people but, he was showing how being a good interviewer influences your personality (and the way people see you):

“Challenge your interviewer, make them think harder,” I think that this is actually really important because when challenging the person you are interviewing, it prevents them from replying in a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, answer. This gives the interview a chance to build the questions on. When building on questions, it gives the interviewee a more winder range to answer. He also said that it is best to ask about how they feel so that they can build on their first point. Another key point was not to interrupt and not to ask double-barreled questions. I never realized that I used to ask double-barreled questions until he actually brought this up. This has made me more conscious.

I feel that the most important advice he gave was to actually listen to the answer. During most interviews, people don’t tend to actually pay attention to what the interviewee is saying, sometimes, when we think we know something we miss out of important parts that we should have noticed.

I felt that the most important lesson that Steve Dawson taught today was to get to the person’s level. I feel this is mostly related to his life as he is a part of FOX NEWS ESPN and was also a part of Straights Times, these experiences have allowed him to understand what it means to be a good journalist/reporter.

“Approach as a professional” stands out to me as a way of saying, be confident, be yourself and show that you should be acknowledged as it shows your personality as bold, fierce and is passionate of what you are doing.

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