Interview with Jason Walls

Kia ora all,

Today I'm very excited to write a blog post about New Zealand Heralds Jason Walls, Jason is one of the journalists that inspired me to write my blog. My interview with Jason Walls has been one of my favourite interviews that I have had.

The first question I asked him was- What are 3 things no one knows about you? “

He lived on a hospital ship in West Africa for a couple of years, as his parents worked for a charity so he went with them

He loves star wars and watched a lot of it growing up, Ep 6. He and his dad would work it heaps growing up, he also watches clone wars when he's at the gym

Jason also talked about how he has dyslexia, Which is very inspiring for me as I have dyslexia as well and to know that someone I look up to does. He just said that he had a great teacher that helped him see that he could do it.

He had many dreams when he was in high school of what he wanted to be when he was older, like an engineer, then that slowly faded away but when he was getting to the end of high school he wanted to be a PR because he got told he was a people person. He thinks that it was interesting

The thing that really pushed him to be a political journalist was that he was a massive political nerd, also when he was in uni he wrote a blog over the election campaign about his opinions on what people wrote. He realised that if he wanted to be a political journalist that he would have to get into parliament and be there. He said he was very lucky to be able to come down to parliament when he first started working for the national business review. Now he is at the Herald. Even though he has long hours, the trolls on Twitter still love his job and feel honoured to be able to deliver the news.

His top 2 favourite moments of being a journalist were the Jamie Lee Ross press release when Jacinda and when became leader of the labour party. His highlights of the election campaign were the debate (last TVNZ one) He found it very funny because you could see him and all his friends were telling him that they could see him. He also loved following the leaders around on their walkabouts.

His advice for anyone who wants to follow him with the same career path would be to write write write and write and also to write things when they happen otherwise you would be too late for it and then you lose the motivation.

Overall I loved my interview with Jason Walls. He has inspired me so much. Jason also just released on his Twitter last week that he would be moving to NewstalkZB next month to take over as their Chief Political reporter. So I wanted to congratulate him and say Thank you for all that you have done. To inspire me to write my blog.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog post. The next one will be up next week. I hope you all have a lovely week.