Meeting George

I had the pleasure of meeting George Negus this week at a CIO function we hosted in Sydney.

I’ve been a fan of George for many years. I remember when I was a school I used to religiously watch Foreign Correspondent in its early days when it was hosted by him.

In recent times, Dateline has run with first rate frontline journalism (even if it did get done by Media Watch earlier this year). George is now moving on to channel 10. Let’s hope 10 keeps up the commitment to his new show – a topic he joked about in light of the recent shareholding changes at the company.

I like George’s reporting style – investigative yet diplomatic. He doesn’t bore the viewer with an ulterior agenda and lets people voice their opinion.

George’s keynote kept us all entertained with quite a few jokes that I won’t repeat here. The event included a book signing of his latest work The World from Down Under, which I was lucky enough to get a signed copy of.

I’m reading Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens at the moment. George also mentioned John Howard’s recently released autobiography. With George’s new book, it begs the question: why are so many male public figures over 60 releasing books right now?