Journalist Scott Simon, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, recently sat down with WGBH mid-day host Henry Santoro, and shared a personal reflection on his career, his life and the death of his Mother, which is the subject of his newest book looking at a son’s love and a Mother’s lessons.
The 63-year old Simon has been telling stories for as long as he can remember, and winning every major award in broadcasting, including the Peabody, the Emmy, the Columbia-DuPont, the Ohio State Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the Sidney Hillman Award.
Scott tells Santoro he’s a storyteller because it’s what he knows. Simon says as a journalist it allows him to meet people and interview them and he says because of the nature of the business,” it allows me to ask some of the most probing, personal, and sometimes borderline insulting questions within 90 seconds of meeting a person, since often there’s no warm-up with people.”
“I love it, I treasure the opportunity to get to know people and to share it with an audience, and if I couldn’t do what I do…I’d probably go door-to-door,” Simon says jokingly.
Simon, who has two young children ages 12 and 9, says he feels blessed to continue broadcasting and writing.
He says a lot of people get into this business because they’re shy and reporting gives a journalist an opportunity to talk to people and ask personal questions.
His most recent book is about his Mother, Patricia Lyons Simon Newman Gelbin, and is titled, “Unforgettable, A Son, a Mother, and the Lessons of a Lifetime.” It's a personal work in which he says his Mother is the hero of the story. He says sections of the book were a struggle to write since he delves into his father’s drinking problem, his mother’s flirtation with suicide and an affair with a married man.
Simon’s ongoing tweeting to his 1.2 million twitter followers while his mother was hospitalized and lay dying of cancer in 2013, was controversial, a move he defends saying his followers had chance to be part of an important and private moment.
He says writing the book helped him in the months following her death, and coping with the loss of a woman he admires greatly. He says the book is a way to keep her legacy alive for his children.
To listen to the extended interview with Scott Simon and WGBH's Henry Santoro...click on the audio file above.
