A Journalism Lesson

On Monday, I had the pleasure of playing host to an English writer who was here in the states doing some research. Since I'm doing some writing for my local paper, it was also an opportunity to see a high level writer practicing his craft. During the course of the day, it came out that there was one person who had met the subject of his research. We were able to get the two of them together. I'm not sharing the details here, to avoid potentially compromising the project.)
The man who'd met the subject was reticent, claiming he knew very little, if anything besides what had been published. (He's also a journalist.) My guest had said prior to the meeting, "You don't know what you know until I ask you." (That's a sentence that you should read aloud to help it make sense.)
While much of the discussion was of mutual friends (both are long time residents of the track and field world), our guest was persistent returning several times to the topic. His questions came at the topic from several angles. Eventually, he came up with one nugget from the conversation, the only one, but one which will add a bit of both color and realism to the forthcoming book.