Truth AND Dare - with Ginny Dougary

Award winning journalist and writer Ginny Dougary talks to Festival founder Sam Davey about some of her most controversial interviews. It’s hard to think of a person that Ginny hasn’t interviewed in a career that has spanned several decades - from trailing Imelda Marcos on her presidential campaign in the Philippines in 1998, to hanging out with Liz Taylor and Madonna in Bel Air and talking sex and politics with Shirley MacLaine in Malibu, to some of her more recent interviews with celebrities such as Idris Elba, Alan Davies , Jimmy McGovern, Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren.

But for Ginny, what lies at the heart of a good interview is not simply a sensational story – it is the building of trust between the journalist, her subject and her readers. Ginny is no stranger to controversy and the controversial – whether it be publisher Felix Dennis confessing to murder or the scandal of “Balding-gate”. We shall revisit her interviews with Salman Rushdie in both 2005 and 2012 where he discussed the impact the fatwa had upon his life, 10 years before the recent shocking and brutal attack upon him in Western New York, and talk about Ginny’s underlying conviction that it is the role of the journalist to sometimes ask what may appear to be the unaskable in order to get to the truth.

Come and find out how journalism and interviewing has changed; why journalists need to keep asking tricky questions and stay in control of their words, and why it is important for people to be brave, to find out the truth and then dare to tell it - whilst at the same time engaging and entertaining their readers!

Ginny is the co-Founder of the Liberty Choir and there will be a collection for the Choir at the end of her event.