Today we heard our first speaker for Writer’s Fortnight, Steve Dawson. Prior to his speech, I anticipated that he would talk more about his journey to where he is and the incredible experiences that we had all heard about briefly in class. Though apart from the questions, it was pretty much about how to interview your interviewee. Being honest, at first I was a little unsure about how I was going to write a summary of his “story” with ‘How to interview’ steps. However, afterwards I realised that this is his story. These 5 steps is what brought him to where he is now. Those 5 steps were:

1. Ask open-ended questions
2. Set the answer free
3. Don’t interrupt
4. Be a single shooter
5. Listen to the answer

These are not just 5 steps on how to have a meaningful interview, they are how to communicate, how to entertain, and how to create relationships – and that was his story. From being a tax account, to working for The Straits Times, and then one of his biggest achievements of getting spotted by ESPN, along the way he was communicating and entertaining all at the same time. Whether that was through his writing or his financial documents, or through speaking on live television. Dawson even mentioned it himself, “Connection is a big thing in journalism.” What I noticed from the basis of his three main jobs, is that they all had some aspect of media. Though his journalism didn’t start till after his tax accountant job, he learnt these steps throughout his entire life working. Dawson didn’t regret spending 10 years being a tax account, because that is what made him the journalist he is, an ethical one.

Dawson also went on to talk about how we should not “fangirl” about someone who inspires us. We should have already started thinking of ways to be at that level, if not higher. What I enjoyed about this talk was that the core of it was slightly buried and as we asked more questions and analysed and listened, we started to dig up his story.