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Peter Mansbridge One on One by Peter Mansbridge
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Peter Mansbridge One on One by Peter Mansbridge
Paperback $19.50
Oct 26, 2010 | ISBN 9780307357854

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    Oct 26, 2010 | ISBN 9780307357854

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Product Details

Praise

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Peter Mansbridge reminds readers why he’s one of the most respected interviewers in Canada.”
Ottawa Citizen

One on One is a wonderful journey involving key events and key players of the past 10 years. Mansbridge writes with self-deprecating, wry humour.”
—The Record

“Captures Mansbridge’s knack for informing and enlightening, even as he jousts, or empathizes, with his subjects. On television, he makes it look effortless. The book proves it’s anything but.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“His solemn, thoughtful presence has been the unofficial brand of CBC News: The National for 21 years. He’s pinned down world leaders on his Newsworld show for a decade. . . . Mansbridge’s offerings are some of the best reading in the book.”
—Toronto Star

Author Essay

Ron Finch was the first person I ever interviewed. He was a nice fellow: funny, smart and happy in his job. It was the summer of 1969 in Churchill, Manitoba. The summers there are short but there’s always lots of action at the grain terminals in the harbour. Finch was the Canada Customs agent monitoring the arrival and departure of foreign ships feverishly taking part in the grain trade. Time was always ticking down on Hudson Bay’s ice-free days. When the ice returned, the Port of Churchill was shut down — there was no negotiating that fact.

Customs agent Finch had become a friend during that northern summer forty years ago, and our interview was probably one of the worst I’ve ever done. And I’ve done a lot. I’ve lost track of how many there have been since then, and I certainly couldn’t name all the people involved (most of them probably can’t remember me either). But in my career as a reporter and correspondent for two decades, and as a nightly news anchor for two more, it is probably safe to assume I’ve done an average of one interview a day. That begins to approach fifteen thousand interviews. So let’s be ultraconservative and say I’ve done around ten thousand. Remembering the first one may sound impressive — something like an NHL veteran recounting, years after the fact, his every move as he potted his first career goal. But I remember this interview for one simple reason: I was scared silly. As I lugged my heavy, briefcase-sized 1960s “portable” Nagra tape recorder down to the customs office, I had no idea how to do an interview.

Table Of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
 
Conrad Black
Diana Krall
Karlheinz Schreiber
The Aga Khan
Randy Bachman
Sir Martin Gilbert
Marc Garneau
Devra Davis
Perdita Felicien
The Golfers
Colm Feore
Brian Clark
Hamid Karzai
Roya Rahmani
Tariq Aziz
Brian Wilson
Bill Clinton
Paul Watson
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
Duleep de Chickera
Bill Gates
South Africa
The Dalai Lama
First Nations
Israeli PMs
Diana Buttu
Rex Murphy
The Hockey Players
The Prime Ministers
Ted Sorensen
Barack Obama
 
Final Thoughts

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