Hey there, it's Rick Morton. Our colleagues that Read This routinely hosts the brightest and best writers from Australia and around the world, including a lot of journalists. As it turns out, today we're going to hear from Lee Sales. Lee is a Walkley Award winner, best known, of course, for being the former host of seven thirty on the ABC and the co host of Everybody's favorite podcast chat ten Looks three with Annabelle Crab. Michael Williams is the
host of Read This and he's with me now. Michael, tell me, how do you actually prepare for an interview with one of Australia's most prolific interviewers who've spent her whole career probably talking to people every single day.
Look, the imposter syndrome that does and should creep in any time you talk to someone definitely creeps in, doubly so when it's with someone who is a seasoned interviewer, as you say, and having watched Lee do it night in, night out in her tenure on seven thirty, I was definitely aware of those kind of journalists conventions, but also her book that she came and Read This to talk about was called Storytellers, and it's explicitly about the question
of the way in which we craft journalism, whether it's through the monthly or the Saturday paper or seven Am, or whether it's through the kind of journalism that we do on read this where it's not prosecutorial, but it certainly aims to be kind of interrogative and interesting ways. And so all of that's kind of racing through your head when you sit down to talk to someone and you know, there's a little intimidating I'm not going to lie you know.
Lee obviously is a journalist, but she has quite a storied writing career now as well. Is it a continuum for her from journalism to writing creatively so to speak?
Look, I think it is, and you definitely hear that in the interview that she gives is for her writing books is in part about exploring things at greater length that she doesn't get the chance to do in the space of a kind of short, sharp interview. It's still journalism, but it's journalism in a kind of more considered mode.
The second book that she wrote was just this little essay that was published as part of a series that Melbourne University Publishing did with little books on big themes, and her one was on doubt, and I think if you look at that book, you get a real sense of why she writes beyond just doing journalism. It's talking about the ways in which you need to bring a
skeptical mind to journalism. You need to kind of ask questions not just of your subject, but of yourself, and I think in her books she does that in really interesting and I think kind of genuinely brave ways.
And also she's just playing old nosey sometimes, isn't she.
Look she is.
The episode takes its time. We always like their episode titles to come straight from something that's said in conversation, but to present something that might be a little counterintuitive. And Lee's love of the word sticky beak and her recognition of the fact that it applies to her plays a big part in the episode, which is.
Fun coming up in just a moment. Lee Sales is a professional sticky beak.
I think sometimes the mistake that journalists make is thinking that because they can write nonfiction, that they will be able to write fiction. I think that's like thinking I can play the piano, so therefore I'll be able to play the cello. Some of the tools that you have in being able to play the piano are going to help you if you're learning a new instrument, but it's still a new instrument.
That's the unmistakable voice of Lee Sales. Anyone who's followed her career will be unsurprised to hear that she can play both the piano and the cello, which somewhat undercuts her metaphor there, but the broader point still stands, what do you do next when you've left your job as the host of the ABC's flagship nightly Current Affairs show. What are the instruments at your disposal for working out
the next chapter of your career? For Lee, it's always been about storytelling, no matter the form, from her childhood love of reading to her long career as one of the country's most celebrated journalists to her secret desire to write a novel. In her new book, Storytellers, Lee Sales takes her personal passion and guiding curiosity about the business of telling stories and turns it into a series of conversations with the wide range of the country's best journalists
talking about how they do it. From Schwartz Media I'm Michael Williams with read this to show about the books we love and the stories behind them. Ahead of chatting to you today, I was rereading your wonderful two thousand and nine essay on Doubt, and that essay opens with you reflecting on your childhood and on the kind of elements that I think arguably went on to make you the journalist that you are today. Can you tell us a bit about your nan, your mom's mum.
So, my mom's mom lived with us when I was growing up, and she was a fantastic woman, and I think the lovely dynamic that you have with an adult who's not your parents is so fantastic. So I was very close to her. We shared a room until I was about thirteen, and so it's like that trusted older adult figure. But who doesn't, I guess, discipline you in the same way that your parents do, and so you
don't have that kind of tension in the relationship. And so she and my mother would always buy the Woman's Weekly and New Idea and Women's Day and all those kind of things, and they'd always be sitting around in the house and I used to love reading them. And what I particularly used to love was the advice columns and reading about other people's lives and problems and reading what advice they were given. And my grandmother, I used to remember, she always used to have a thing against
sticky beaks. She used to be don't be a sticky beak, you know, because it was the era, of course, where there was one phone in the house and it was in the kitchen, so you can never have a private conversation. So I would always be like, well, what was that about? What did someone say? Don't you be a sticky beak? And of course being a journalist allows you to be a professional sticky beak.
Even then, did you know that you were a harder sticky beak? You had to hide that from your grandmother.
Yeah, I thought I was a sticky beak.
I definitely was always interested in people, and I was curious about things and curious about the world. And I remember I'd go to bed and they'd be listening. They'd watch Prisoner, which was on after I went to bed, but I wasn't allowed to watch it, but I used to be listening.
From my room. So yeah, I definitely it was always a sticky beak.
I like advice columns as a way to kind of feed that hunger, to kind of see on the page people kind of engaging with media to share their deepest, darker secrets. There's something in that that makes a lot of sense that you would like that.
Yeah, And I think I guess when you for all of us, when you're a.
Child, you don't really realize this as child, but your world and how you think the world works is based on what is in your immediate vicinity. So if like me, you're having a suburban upbringing with a house where you know your mum and dad are there, you've got a sibling, your grandmother lives with you. Like I didn't even really realize until my teens that that was unusual that my grandmother lived with us. So everything that's in your normal
life seems normal. But when you say read advice columns and things like that, you realize, oh wow, there's all this whole world of other interesting and strange things that happened out there, and so that that was fun.
Do you remember when you first had a sense of vocation? Because I always knew I was a book ned and it was going to be books one way or the other, but I couldn't it took me a long time to understand how that might be a job, how that might be something that you do. And I imagine recognizing an innate sense of curiosity and tendency to argue back to your parents and being a sticky beig. We're all qualifies you identified, but understanding how to turn them into job must have been a different thing.
Oh, totally, I like you.
I also knew that I was a book dead and because I just never had my nose out of a book. And I used to love writing, and I was always writing stories and reading them to my friends and so on. And I have a very distinct memory of when I was in grade three, did this piece of creative writing, and my teacher, Missus Cantort, he said, that's so good.
You should go and read it to the grade fours, which I did, And then when I came back, they were doing an activity where you had to draw a picture of what you'd like to be when you grew up, and I drew someone sitting at a desk writing. And so really, even today, you know, one of my great dreams would be to write a novel, because in my own head, even though I've written, you know, Storytellers is my fifth book. I feel like, yeah, but it's not a real book.
It because a novel.
It's a real book. And so I still would love to have a go at writing a novel. And so in my head, I think that that's what I thought I wanted to do. But where I grew up, I mean I didn't know anyone who was a journalist or a writer, or an artist or a musician, Like those were hobbies. Those weren't things that you did for a job, And so I was looking for Okay, I like words, I like writing, I like talking to people. I like communication. What is a job that enables you to do those things?
And so journalism seemed like, okay, well that's that's a job where you actually go somewhere and you get paid and there's a reliable income.
But you know, like all kids i'd gone.
Through, Oh, I should be a cruise director, you know when I was watching Love Boater, I should be a vet when I was watching a country practice.
But yeah, I kind of like you. I knew it would be something words based.
I could see you as a cruise director. I think you could. I mean, you could be cruise director and occasionally move over to the grand piano and you know, just kind of master of ceremonies at all times.
It's you know, it's funny because it's interesting, isn't it that of all of the jobs on Love Boat that I seized on the one that probably of all those people's jobs I would have made the best suited to, which was dealing with people front of house. You know, I didn't want to desire to be the captain. I didn't desire to be Eyazac on the bar. I thought Julie's gig.
Was the gig.
One of the things that's so lovely about storytellers is that the structure of it is this series of conversations that you have with this cross section of people working in this space, and so it becomes this rolling dialogue between you and all these other people. And one of the things that strikes me often talking to writers is how solitary a pursuit it is, and how hard it
is to remember that you have peers and colleagues. How important is that kind of network of other people doing it, and how enjoyable was the process of going to them all for the book.
Oh, I loved it.
I was looking for people with a really diverse range of experience in journalism, right from tabloid journalists to serious investigative reporters, feature writers, camera operators, and people from all sorts of different cultural backgrounds. And so I was deliberately trying to think, Okay, not everyone loves tabloid journalism, but who in this country is really good at tabloid journalism, or who is really good at commercial television journalism and
so forth? And so luckily for me, everyone that I approached said yes, which was just so great. And then the process of having the conversations was fascinating, partly because it's reassuring. So, for example, I interviewed Lory Oaks, who is a terrific interviewer, political interviewer, an amazing journalist. And when Laurie talked through how he prepares for a political interview, I felt relieved because I was like, Oh, thank god,
that's how I've been doing it all this time. Great, that must be good, that must be an okay way to do it. But then the other thing that was amazing was just seeing how many different ways to skin a cat there are, and all the different approaches people take. So many people said they think about the audience all the time, and they think about who they're broadcasting to or writing to. And then one person, Nicki Sava, who is a columnist with nine newspapers and I think a
terrific political columnist. She said, Oh, I never think about the audience. I just think about what I'm interested in, and then I write about what I'm interested in. And I thought, Jesus, isn't that fascinating? Because she her columns are so interesting. They're not in any way insular. They don't feel like she's self focused. They feel really outwardly focused. But she clearly starts from a position of thinking, what's
caught my attention in politics this week? And if it's caught my attention, it'll probably catch other people's attention too.
She's also a fascinating example because I do think she lets emotion be part of how she writes opinion and commentary. You know, Nicki Sava's anger is a wonder to behold on the page, and part of why you read her is because you know that if she assesses a politician and finds some lacking or insincere or whatever, she's going to train both barrels at them. And it's that interesting idea that journalistic impartiality doesn't mean not having an emotional response to things.
One hundred percent.
I think, you know, it was really interesting with someone like nick as well, and this is why diversity in newsrooms is important, and not just cultural diversity, economic diversity as well. Nicki was talking about her family with Greek When she started in the press gallery in the nineteen seventies, she was one of the very few women and her
nickname was Ethniki. That's what everyone called her. She said, to this day, she's never forgotten that she grew up in a working class household where her parents were illiterate factory workers. They couldn't speak English, and that, of course would inform Nicki Sava's work, because she's got more, She's got that lived experience of growing up in that environment and being treated in that way and being different in a group of people.
One of the other stories.
That really stuck with me is Pamela Williams, who's a very decorated journalist at Australian Financial Review, and at the end of her interview she talks about how she came into journalism, and it was that she'd had a daughter in her twenties and her daughter had cancer and she had long illness, and then her daughter died when she was nine, and Pam was just absolutely on the bones of her ass. She was on a single mother's pension.
She joined this group of skeptics because she was so angry at faith healers and people like this kind of thing and the peddling of misinformation around childhood cancer.
And so forth. And she ended up kind of conning.
Away into writing a story for a magazine, and she lied and told them she was a freelance journalist, and then that got published, and then she got another one, and then she kind of worked away and for years she never told anyone what her actual backstory was. And she makes the point that journalism has to have paths in it for people that come into it from weird and unusual backgrounds, because they bring that experience then into their reporting.
You don't bring it in in terms.
Of first person accounts, but it just might make you a bit more attuned to certain stories. So, for example, if you have a disability yourself or you care for somebody with a disability, you have more experience in that sector. Of course, you're going to see more stories in that somebody who doesn't have that experience at all. And so that's why you know, when we get to bring it back to storytelling, we're going to get a richer array of stories that appeal.
To more people.
If the people searching for those stories themselves come from a diverse array of backgrounds.
We'll be right back coming to the world of journalism. From a bookish bend Lee quickly came to the somewhat annoying realization that while her vocation was all about storytelling, in real life, the stories often didn't unfold in the way she wished.
In my first book, Detainee two, which was about the case of David Hicks, the Australian who was held in the terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay, I went to interview Dennis Richardson, who was then the head of ASIO, the Director General of ASIO, and in my mind I wanted the chap to start with the day that Dennis Richardson got the phone call to go there's an Australian who's been picked up in Afghanistan. Because it was it was dramatic, right,
it was the immediate aftermath of nine to eleven. People forget now because it was so long ago, but everyone was terrified. We thought another terrorist attack was imminent, and it was this shocking thing that this Australian, this white Australian young man, had been picked up in Afghanistan at this al Qaeda training camp, And so I wanted to be able to write this chapter. Like you know, Dennis Richardson was sitting at his desk.
The phone rang. He picked it up.
It was General Smith of the US sent calm and he said, blah blah. You know I wanted that. And when I spoke to Dennis, I said, where were you when you got the call? He's like, oh, jeez, I can't remember it. And I'm like, oh, Dennis, you must remember. This is a big thing. An Australian picked up. I got down of my bait. Edis is like, you've got to remember in this moment, there were that many phone calls and that many pieces of intelligence. I honestly, I know I got a call about it, but I just
can't tell you. Was I in my car, was I at home? Was I at my desk? I was just like desperate, Like God, You've got to remember, because when you're trying to make order of a whole sea of facts that you've got if you've got an idea about how to structure something, it's like you're in the middle of the ocean holding onto a piece of driftwood, waiting for rescue, and then basically the driftwood gets taken away from you, and then you're just back in the ocean,
floating around hopelessly. But the reality is, because Dennis Richardson couldn't remember that, I could not make that up and just go, oh, well, I'll just say he was at his desk.
You can't do that.
So I had to completely abandon that idea and find a different way of opening that chapter. And that's both the joy of nonfiction versus fiction, or journalism versus fiction. It imposes a structure because you can only work with the facts that you've got.
But then that.
Obviously can be kind of crippling because you can only work with the facts that you've got.
Journalism is littered with examples of people who decided not to let the facts get in the way of it. Good story. Yes, that idea, you know, I can see the beguiling thing about it. You know, what you're saying is absolutely true, But funnily enough, a story and telling a good story is an agenda in and of itself. It's not a good point part of some political agenda, but it is a kind of predetermined outcome that you're working towards.
That's so true.
It's a form of bias, actually, really, and it's a bias that's inherent to journalism a way that this manifests. And I think it's something I've been thinking a lot about because I think it actually is contributing to mental health issues. Journalism seizes on the aberration. That's the nature of the news. The nature of the news is one hundred helicopters fly safely today. The one that crashes is
the one that makes the news. It's important that we investigate and report that because, like a coroner, what you're checking is is there a reason that helicopter crash That could mean there are going to be more helicopter crashes. There's faulty pilot training, there's at that's coming out that there's more helicopters that have it. So it is important
to have a look at that aberration. But the end result of that, if you overemphasize it, is it makes people fearful of something that don't really need to be fearful of. Because it's not a representation of the real world. So the reality is, when you see things on the news, what you need to say to yourself to avoid becoming anxious is what i'm seeing here is the least likely thing to happen to me. That's the very reason it's made the news, because it is the least likely thing to happen.
I am curious again, and I thought it a lot reading this book, about the way in which we're beguiled by stories and turning things into stories, and the conventions of storytelling and narrative aren't always in need overlay with real life. Is there a different kind of story you find yourself wanting to tell now that you're not in the business of nightly news storytelling.
The older I get, the more I'm interested in the nuance of stories and the complexity of stories, and the fact that, as you say, so often things aren't clear. So people who we think are heroic, often you know they might not be that heroic because they're human beings. Or people that we think are evil aren't all bad. They might have some good aspects to them. And so the more nuanced story is, and the more complex it is, and the more it captures all of that, the more
engaging I personally find it. But I think because of the polarization of things, you often tend to get stories that are on one track or another, like this is all good or this is all bad, And I personally find that kind of boring.
Doing eleven twelve years in a job like the seven thirty job, you must have had to actively work not to have a sense of your base, not to have a sense of kind of the expectations of the show and people's preconceptions of what the role of Flagship Current Affairs on the ABC is. How much is that awareness of audience unhelpful to a storyteller.
You have to have audience in mind and.
Both out of mind.
So for me, how I approached that job, and how I think journalists generally should approach their job is thinking, I'm here and it's not about me. It's not about my opinion, it's not about what I think about this. It's about people at home and the broader public, and it's about the average fair minded person out there in the community and what they might like ask of this person in this position of power. Because that was the
nature of my job. There was that I was often having to challenge people in positions of power, and so I would be thinking of the audience in that sense. But the point at which I would not think about the audience is how is the audience going to react to this? And I think the answer to that is that it was kind of some advice actually that my grandmother gave me when I was a kid, which is, it's none of your business what anybody thinks of you. So I used to say to her, well, what did
missus Solenso say about my blabbahs? She'd sayll, it's none of your business what anybody thinks of you. And I think that's actually quite good advice in life. It's not really any of my business if people think that I'm an awesome journal or if people think I'm absolute crap. You have to go about your job and about whatever it is that you do with I think, a strong sense yourself of this is what I believe, my values are, this is how I believe in doing the job, and
then you have to go from there. Sometimes people might like it and it might be popular. Sometimes people may not like it and it might be unpopular. But there's only one way to do it, and it's the way that is having integrity to your own values.
I can't let your confess desire to when day write a novel go by the wayside. While we're here. There's a precedent, an established president of journalists who turn their eye to fiction. What kind of fiction would you write it? If you were writing a novel.
Look, I would suspect what I would end up writing.
You never really know until you sit down.
I suspect I would end up writing something that would be heavily drawn from reality. Because what I've realized so I have had a stab at writing a novel. I've got about forty thousand words sitting in a drawer which will never see the light of day. But hopefully there'll be things I can pick out of it, because I think what you learn when you do writing for a living is often your first drafts of things bear no relationship or limited relationship to what you actually end up
with at the end of the day. But it's like I viewed as like you need to assemble something. It's like a building where you're building the building and you have scaffolding on it, and at a certain point you take the scaffolding off. So I'll come back to a novel in a second. But just to illustrate that point, when I was writing my book Any Ordinary Day, it had this opening that was there.
For a really long time.
You know, the whole book was kind of done, and I was working on just my edit before I set it off to the publisher.
And just there was just something kind of not right with it.
But I really liked the anecdote that I was opening the book with, and I ended up deciding, you know what, I think this anecdote, while it's good, is kind of tangential to the ultimate theme and the question that the book's asking. And so in the end, the original opening, say two thousand words of any Ordinary Day, did not make it into the book, but I needed it there for the entire process of the writing because I had to have something that was enabling me to move forward.
And so say, to go back to the novel, this novel that's sitting in my top drawer already, when I look at it, I go, h, it's not mature enough. Those characters are too one dimensional. But I like that hint of an idea, or I like that description. So I think because my tools in life are observation, thinking deeply, about why people do things and motives. It'll be some kind I don't think i'd be reaching safe a fantasy or something kind of elaborately comical, like say Steve Toltz's work.
I think it'll be more kind of small. And by that I don't mean small, as you know, in a derogatory sense. I mean everyday kind of themes around families, relationships, everyday life and that kind of thing.
I would guess I'll lend somewhere in that space.
I'm curious about whether you feel more exposed personally in writing fiction than you do in writing journalism. Yep.
And part of it, for me would be the fear of that everyone would be looking to go, ah, well, you know, look at all these accolades for journalism. Finally Sales has done something completely crap and now we can all beat the living shit out of it. So there'll be that which I think I will have to just put aside, that fear, right, because you just have to. If you want to do something, you can't be thinking about the ultimate reaction or the ultimate will you be
any good at it? If I write a novel and it's completely hopeless, that's fine, But the inner eight year old in me still wants to have a stab at writing the novel. So I think I've just got to be a bit liberated, you know, from all of that sense of you know, will it be any good? Will
I actually be able to do it? I think sometimes the mistake that journalists make is thinking that because they can write nonfiction, that they will be able to write fiction, and it's actually a drastically I think that's like thinking I can play the piano, so therefore I'll be able to play the cello. Some of the tools that you have in being able to play the piano are going to help you.
If you're learning a new instrument, but it's still a new instrument.
Do you think you're going to take the time on the novel? What's your creative process? You disciplined? Are you're just going to be like I'm going to chip away and keep writing.
I'm a bit torn because I've also got another nonfiction book that I've done a fair bit of work on that I'm just not sure which project I should go down. I mean, I keep getting worried I'm going to just run out of time to write novels because there's always nonfiction things catching my eye.
And then the other thing I'm trying.
To do is since I'm still busy, but I'm not as busy as I used to be when I was tied to the daily news cycle and your life could be thrown into disarray. So I'm trying much harder to do more music practice, more piano practice, more cello practice, because I think that that's really healthy for me. And again, I just it's been such an important part of my
life and I don't want to let that slide. And there's been times where when I've been so busy doing seven thirty, I'll sit down to play the piano and I can still sight read, but I'll think there's a day if I'm not careful, one day I might sit down here and I might not be able to do this anymore, and that would.
Be really a heartbreaking day.
And so I just want to have more balance in that I'm not just all work and looking after the boys, which is pretty much what it's being for the past decade. So I do want to do some writing, but I also want to do an hour of cello practice every day, So you know, I need Do you know anyone that does cloning?
I do, and they do specialize in cellist cloning, so I think we'll be fine. It's all about the forearms. If you're cloning a cellist.
Absolutely, yeah, that would be great.
So yeah, if I could just have a few, I mean probably a couple of extra Lee sales, this would be fantastic.
Fine, I think I think the demand will be out there. That's the sound of one of Lee's clones practicing the cello. The real Lee's new book is called Storytellers, Questions, Answers and the Craft of Journalism. It's out now.
Thanks for listening to Lee Sales. I read this. For the next couple of months, we're going to bring you some of the best interviews from the show every Sunday, listen out for conversations with David Maher, Geraldine Brooks may be in Bruce Pasco and more. And if you don't want to wait until next Sunday to dive in to read this, you could search for it wherever you listen to podcasts. There is a whole year's worth of fascinating conversations ready just for you.