Steve Coll is President and CEO of the New America Foundation, and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. Previously he spent 20 years as a foreign correspondent and senior editor at The Washington Post, serving as the paper’s managing editor from 1998 to 2004. He is the author of six books, including the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
Q. What do you wake up to?
A. I read The New York Times and The Washington Post and I don’t listen to anything.
Q. What music have you listened to today?
A. I’m on a John Adams streak.
Q. What’s your favorite word?
A. Ambiguous.
Q. What do you find beautiful?
A. Acoustic piano.
Q. How would you describe yourself in five words or fewer?
A. Balanced and passionate about my work.
Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A. A writer.
Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. These days, a margarita.
Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. India.
Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. Acting.
Q. What is your favorite holiday and why?
A. Thanksgiving, for family.
Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. Outdoors at twilight in the neighborhood.
Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. My piano.
Q. What promise do you make to yourself that you break the most often?
A. I’ll slow down.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you’d most love to have a beer with?
A. Bill Evans.
To read more about Coll’s panel on the future of newspapers, click here.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.