Never get into a plane named after the destructive, evil monsters known as gremlins, advised the journalist-turned-author.
That plane is likely to crash, similar to the Gremlin Special, a military aircraft that did just that in May of 1945 during a sightseeing trip over Shangri-La, a luscious, mystifying and isolated valley located within New Guinea’s uncharted jungle.
Mitchell Zuckoff, the journalist-turned-author who unearthed the story of the Gremlin Special, spoke Thursday as part of the fifth annual Paul J. Schatt Memorial Lecture at the Walter Cronkite School. The lecture series is in honor of Schatt, a former Arizona Republic editor who also taught at the Cronkite School.
Zuckoff, a former special projects reporter for the Boston Globe and a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in investigative writing, discussed his fifth book, “Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II,” and how he put it together.
During the lecture, Zuckoff explained the process of compiling the interviews and research for the book, traveling to New Guinea to see the scene of the crash and ultimately transitioning from journalist to author.
Zuckoff did not see the transition as a monumental one, seeing both the profession of journalism and that of an author as similar careers.
“Evolution is more accurate,” he said. “The journalism I did coming up in this business is what prepared me, what led me here to write this book and, in fact, all of my books.”
Zuckoff traveled to New Guinea and spoke to the native people that the three survivors of the crash encountered. He had with him a translator and found that sticking to his practiced methods of interviewing allowed him to gain access into the native people’s lives.
“What you have to do to be a good interviewer is to fight that biological impulse to be listening and thinking about everything else going on around you and to narrow the focus,” Zuckoff said. “(You have to be) thinking about the context of what the person is telling you, thinking about the next question, thinking about how it relates to this other thing you know from someone else.”
Zuckoff discussed how similar the lifestyles of being a reporter and authoring a non-fiction book are, both involving long days full of research and writing. Both did not involve any type of elegance, he said.
“I work harder now more than ever,” Zuckoff said of being an author. “This is what we love to do. We’re excited about something. It’s work, but the day I kick back and put my feet up — actually, I can’t imagine it.”
Veronica Jones, a journalism senior, said she came out to hear Zuckoff speak to gain some guidance from the journalist-turned-author.
“I’ve been having issues with a story I’m working on, so I kind of needed to get some advice,” Jones said. “It’s not every day that you get to talk to someone like this. I think it’s a good opportunity to take advantage of.”
Contact the reporter at pmelbour@asu.edu
