Sam Donaldson

Gloomy skies above with the highways slick as ice, the day of Friday could not have been any worse. But I drove through the slick highway keeping my car from hydroplaning to see Sam Donaldson in a student only event. Sam Donaldson, who was introduced as a loquacious guy, was first asked to speak about his childhood briefly. “No such thing as briefly,” Donaldson said. None the less he talked about being born in El Paso, Texas and being raised on a farm. After high school he spent 2 ½ years in the Army and did not have a President dumb enough to go to war. “Easy to get in to a war, but hard to get out,” said Donaldson. One time stationed in Nevada he was close to one of the nuclear tests and people joke that the radiation made him crazy. Donaldson knew he did not want to work on the farm and wanted to be a journalist. “Went to New York to become a star but they peed all over me,” said Donaldson. So he went to D.C.

Since Linden Johnson, he has interviewed every single President, but not JFK. Donaldson emphasized asking questions directly should always get a direct answer in return. He talked about his aggressive style and people thought he was rood. But he asked questions that were in the public’s interest. When you ask one question, not multiple ones, to get to the point, you are being direct not aggressive. A Q and A session began and one of the questions came (from the looks of it) someone’s mom who probably should not have been there. One intriguing question was on the media spitting out garbage. He said you have to accept stories like Britney Spears because it brings in the viewers and it makes the corporations money. We do live in a capitalistic society.

The speech came to a close and I am extremely grateful to SJSU for giving me the opportunity to meet and legend and an inspiration to succeed.