Joe Galloway - Steven Pressfield interview with the man who set the standard for today's journalists.
You ask me to analyze what has always made me jump when others might pause. Tough question. I've always been competitive and 22 years at United Press International (UPI), the now defunct news wire service, only sharpened that edge. UPI's motto was always: A Deadline Every Minute. You learned to move fast, get the story fast and first, write fast and leave The Associated Press in the dirt.
When I went to Vietnam to cover the war in the spring of 1965 I had just turned 23 years old. I spent my first seven months covering the U.S. Marines. The learning curve is steep in combat. You learn to read a situation, or a man, instantly and if you are wrong it can cost you your life.
At the core, down deep, is a willingness to act on instinct when the situation leaves no time for chewing things over or searching the memory for a textbook solution. I trust my instincts. They are the sum total of all I know, all I have read, all I have experienced, all I have learned. Instinct has served me well all my life. It has permitted me to jump when others might not, and survive to tell the stories.
Read the entire interview.