Bernardsville Public Library welcomed Don Dahler, an award-winning American journalist and author, on Saturday, March 15th. Dahler has lived in the Bernardsville community for several years, and the Bernardsville Public Library was lucky enough to have Dahler answer questions about his career as a news anchor, journalist, and award-winning author at the public library.
Dahler has worked as a news anchor for 3 major networks: ABC, CBS, and FOX. While working on these news networks, Dahler covered the world’s biggest issues, such as global wars, presidential elections, and school shootings. Dahler also documented major events throughout his own life in journals, where he wrote about going from a teenage runaway to an award-winning author. He used these journals to write books and memoirs about his life later on. Dahler has written 5 books that have been published and has won a News and Documentary Emmy award for Outstanding Live Coverage of a Current News Story. One of Dahler’s best-selling books is Souvenirs from an Absurd Life. This book presents true stories from Don Dahler’s life, which represent a “nobody” who is struggling with money to his uprising and becoming an award-winning journalist.
Despite all of Dahlers many accomplishments, the one event he is known best for is being the first national correspondent to report live at the World Trade Center attacks on September 11th, 2001. Dahler calmly reported and relayed his observations, regardless of the unfolding devastation, which was only a few blocks away from him. He kept calm at the devastating sight and remembered not to exaggerate what was happening but to strictly report just the facts. During Don’s interview, he said, “The responsible way to report this was not to over exaggerate or dramatize it, but rather I had to stay calm and just describe what I was seeing, and if I couldn’t confirm something I wasn’t going to report it.”
An important topic that kept on repeating itself throughout Dahler’s interview was what made a good journalist. He touched upon how many journalists these days want a platform, and for many of them, it’s more about the celebrity than it is about telling and informing an audience. However, something special about Dahler is that he would never make the stories about himself; he always kept the stories about the event or person he was covering, which is what makes a good journalist. Dahler said, “I am comfortable with strangers, and I try to connect with them. Often, we go through life with a mirror in front of our faces, and the trick to being a good journalist is you take the mirror down and ask about who that person is in that situation, which allows you to convey that to the people.” What Dahler is ultimately trying to say is that many people in today’s world are much too concerned with themselves instead of the people or story they are trying to tell which is why to be a good journalist you have to stop worrying about yourself and put the topic that you are trying to cover first.
Melissa Gomez is a member of the Bernardsville community and is very involved in all the events that surround the town and school district. Melissa attended Dahlers Q and A without knowing a single thing about him when walking in. Melissa Gomez left very inspired and motivated. She said, “I was not aware of all the work professional journalists have to go through to ensure that they are producing good and reliable journalism.”
