It was 22 years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday...the time I got to talk to Vaclav Havel amidst Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution.
Havel - who has sadly died after an extraordinary career as a playwright, anti-communist dissident and president - was on stage at The Magic Lantern Theatre in Prague.
This was the place where the dissidents held their press conferences during the smoothest and quickest of the anti-communist revolutions which swept through Eastern Europe in 1989.
It was a time when 300,000 excited Czechs would pack Wenceslas Square to demand an end to communist dictatorship...and find that their wishes were being met more quickly than they could ever have dreamed.
If you strain your eyes you can almost see me in this photo - amidst the throng, holding my Australian Broadcasting Corporation microphone to the lips of my translator, Helena, who would tell me what the revolutionaries were saying on the balcony in animated bursts over the wild chanting and applause.
I say you can "almost" see me, because my broadcast location was actually out of this shot a little the right of Havel as he looked down upon us.
There was an especially jubilant moment when the revolutionaries announced the news of the resignation of the Czechoslovakian communist president, Gustav Husak, amdist demented cheering.
After that, the campaign for "Havel to the Castle" really got going.
HAVEL, THE MEDIA SUPREMO
The Havel presidential campaign was illustrated by big red, white and blue posters with his picture which went up suddenly all over Prague and beyond.
There were also Havel badges proudly worn in lapels by the victorious revolutionaries.
But Havel - known for his shyness and modesty - proved to be a rather coy potential candidate in the early stages.
So as the western media packed into the Magic Lantern press conference after the fall of Husak, we had one major question.
Was the much-jailed playwright willing to serve as president?
It was asked in various ways, as journalists are inclined to do.
I got to ask a version of the question myself, which - together with Havel's answer - was swiftly sent back via the phone in my hotel room (bugged by the secret police, the StB, though they did nothing to actually stop the broadcasts) and run around the world on Radio Australia.
Havel's answer to my question still sticks in my mind.
He didn't say "yes" or "no".
But being media savvy, he took the opportunity to spell out the kind of qualities the new president needed...wisdom, fairness etc.
It was done with style and a certain irony, since the revolutionary consensus was that it was Havel who possessed such presidential attributes more than anyone else on offer.
THE SPECIFIC TO THE GENERAL
When I later came to study the art of giving great answers to tough questions, I realised Havel was using the rule known as the "Specific To The General".
If you're asked a question and, for whatever reason, you're unable to answer it directly, then "no comment" doesn't work.
You're serving your audience and yourself much better if you say something - and you can do this by addressing the issue raised by the specific question, but in a more general way.
So while the heroic Vaclav Havel is no longer with us, we can still learn from his media technique - as well as from his principles, his persistence and his panache.
And bearded Australian media gurus - such as the one pictured here in Wenceslas Square some years after the revolution - are still known to talk of the great man's media wizardry when they return to run master classes in the Czech Republic.
Photo credit: Brian Underwood UK Trade and Investment
CHRISTMAS IN PRAGUE
And what's all this got to do with the Christmas issue of the Michael Dodd Media Christmas News?
Well as the revolutionaries took control of Czechoslovakia, they did something they couldn't do under communism.
It's a tradition which continues to this day.
Seasons Greetings,
Michael
