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Commanding audiences of millions on the radio and television every day, political interviewers hold a uniquely
powerful position with far-reaching influence. Current affairs luminaries such as Jeremy Paxman and Jon Snow help
to define what is newsworthy. It is not just who they interview but how they introduce the interviewee and even the
language used in the interview. These decisions inevitably shape the way we think about the key issues of policy
and politics.
Having been an interviewee myself, on the sharp end of many an interrogation, I have often wondered what my
questioner hoped to discover from their interview with me. I have also speculated about how they go about selecting
both their interviewees and their interview questions and why they so frequently practise the ungentlemanly art of
the interruption.
In a bid to answer some of these questions I have made a film for Channel 4 in which I had a chance to turn the
tables on four of the biggest stars of political interviewing: John Humphrys, Jon Snow, Nick Robinson and Jeremy
Paxman.
GLADATORIAL STYLE
I wanted my interviews to be different to the quick-fire, time-pressured interviews their roles demand. I wanted to ask
them how they saw their job, allowing them the luxury of enough time to answer at length and only putting further
questions when further clarification seemed necessary. Most of all, I wanted to avoid falling into the trap of adopting
an argumentative style so often associated with the interviews they conduct. This wasn't to be a gladiatorial-style
contest with winners and losers but a different way of approaching the interview where the winner would be the
audience.
Without exception, Jeremy, Jon, Nick and John seem to believe that interviews have to be tough to be effective -
though Jeremy denied he was aggressive, saying: "I don't think I am. I would use a word like straightforward." But I
believe that by deliberately adopting a combative manner, interviews have been turned into a spectator sport.
Humphrys, famed for his interruptions on the Today programme, was surprisingly candid when I asked him about his
approach. He told me he does get carried away occasionally. saying: "I do sometimes get a bit irritated, and a little
bit annoyed, and then, if I interrupt unfairly, and I do sometimes, I overdo it sometimes, I am aware of that and cross
with myself." He agreed that an element of entertainment value has crept into political interviewing but considered it
a necessary evil to hold listeners' attention.
I disagree with that approach - I strongly believe that a belligerent manner inhibits the person interviewed. Feeling
under siege, they struggle to get their case across, retreating to the safety of repeating the same things time and
again or entering the fight in the hope he or she may emerge the victor - which is rarely the case.
In fact, I believe my interviews with the four illustrate an alternative method which relaxes the interviewee and draws
out the important information without the theatricals we have all come to expect.
But it is not only the way interviews are conducted that troubled me; I wanted to understand how the interviewees
are selected. It seems to me they are too often plucked from a narrow range of groups comprising MPs, ministers,
and shadow ministers and experts - who are treated more respectfully. These people become a self-selected group
of established news makers. Their utterances become news and are therefore powerful in the eyes of the
interviewer. However we rarely hear from people who are not considered newsworthy but who are actually the real
power brokers, working behind the scenes but still immensely influential such as the trade unionists, the secretary
general of the UN, the head of MI5, council leaders or a newspaper proprietor.
And there is another important group of people I would call the "pioneers", whose ideas `may today be regarded as
totally beyond the pale but become the conventional wisdom of tomorrow. How would Paxman have dealt with
Gandhi, or Snow with Mrs Pankhurst, or Humphrys with Nelson Mandela at a time when they were seen as both
irrelevant and dangerous?
Even when political interviewers end up speaking to someone who exists outside the corridors of Whitehall, the way
they are introduced can affect the audience's take on their views. I put it to the interviewers that introducing
someone as a "Labour rebel", for example, might taint listeners, and viewers' perspective: automatically giving the
audience the opportunity to discount their opinions because, after all, they are a "rebel".
Robinson told me that using, "a form of shorthand, a shrinking cast," is a result of time constraints. "I get on air for an
average news bulletin the length of a Sun newspaper editorial," he said. "We're talking of low hundreds of words ...
it's trying to get the audience to where you want them in terms of making sense of the story." He did concede there
was a danger of affecting the audience's judgment but argued that issuing factual information would mean you
would "end up telling people nothing at all".
To me, this lends weight to my case that if political interviewers carried out longer, more relaxed interviews, they
would not only discover more information, they would produce a more factual account. I found some sympathy for
this argument from Paxman who said: "It's a fight you have every day with the editor - 'how long have we got for
this? Four minutes? You know, we need eight' - well you have these scraps every day, usually you lose, you just do
it in the time." Snow, however, took a more pragmatic view, telling me: "If you can't say it in 30 seconds, it isn't worth
saying."
ENORMOUS POWER
I was interested to see who the interviewers thought they were accountable to. As a member of parliament for more
than 50 years I was employed by 60,000 people - everyone in my constituency - and if they became dissatisfied with
my performance they could get rid of me. Whereas it seems that political interviewers wield enormous power yet
aren't necessarily accountable to anyone. All four told me they were accountable to the audience, and to some
degree the ratings. Snow told me: "Sometimes people write to me and say, 'I'll never view you again, so I write back
and say, 'give me one more chance, I've taken note of what you say' and I hope to get them to stay with us."
All the interviewers seemed united in what they hoped to get out of an interview - Humphrys described it as: "A
better informed audience." Paxman said: "If you were looking for one sentence I suppose it would be that you're
trying to find things out." While for Snow it is to: "Shine a light on what is going on, and if that causes trouble, well so
be it."
While I have no doubt of their intentions and great respect for all four interviewers I do question whether they can
ever reveal and expose the truths they wish to when so many important voices appear to be excluded from their
programmes, when the language they use colours the audience's views before they have a chance to make their
minds up and when their approach curbs the opportunity for a real debate. I hope that my programme will offer an
alternative way of approaching the interview that could maybe, in Snow's words: "Shine a light on what is going on."
powerful position with far-reaching influence. Current affairs luminaries such as Jeremy Paxman and Jon Snow help
to define what is newsworthy. It is not just who they interview but how they introduce the interviewee and even the
language used in the interview. These decisions inevitably shape the way we think about the key issues of policy
and politics.
Having been an interviewee myself, on the sharp end of many an interrogation, I have often wondered what my
questioner hoped to discover from their interview with me. I have also speculated about how they go about selecting
both their interviewees and their interview questions and why they so frequently practise the ungentlemanly art of
the interruption.
In a bid to answer some of these questions I have made a film for Channel 4 in which I had a chance to turn the
tables on four of the biggest stars of political interviewing: John Humphrys, Jon Snow, Nick Robinson and Jeremy
Paxman.
GLADATORIAL STYLE
I wanted my interviews to be different to the quick-fire, time-pressured interviews their roles demand. I wanted to ask
them how they saw their job, allowing them the luxury of enough time to answer at length and only putting further
questions when further clarification seemed necessary. Most of all, I wanted to avoid falling into the trap of adopting
an argumentative style so often associated with the interviews they conduct. This wasn't to be a gladiatorial-style
contest with winners and losers but a different way of approaching the interview where the winner would be the
audience.
Without exception, Jeremy, Jon, Nick and John seem to believe that interviews have to be tough to be effective -
though Jeremy denied he was aggressive, saying: "I don't think I am. I would use a word like straightforward." But I
believe that by deliberately adopting a combative manner, interviews have been turned into a spectator sport.
Humphrys, famed for his interruptions on the Today programme, was surprisingly candid when I asked him about his
approach. He told me he does get carried away occasionally. saying: "I do sometimes get a bit irritated, and a little
bit annoyed, and then, if I interrupt unfairly, and I do sometimes, I overdo it sometimes, I am aware of that and cross
with myself." He agreed that an element of entertainment value has crept into political interviewing but considered it
a necessary evil to hold listeners' attention.
I disagree with that approach - I strongly believe that a belligerent manner inhibits the person interviewed. Feeling
under siege, they struggle to get their case across, retreating to the safety of repeating the same things time and
again or entering the fight in the hope he or she may emerge the victor - which is rarely the case.
In fact, I believe my interviews with the four illustrate an alternative method which relaxes the interviewee and draws
out the important information without the theatricals we have all come to expect.
But it is not only the way interviews are conducted that troubled me; I wanted to understand how the interviewees
are selected. It seems to me they are too often plucked from a narrow range of groups comprising MPs, ministers,
and shadow ministers and experts - who are treated more respectfully. These people become a self-selected group
of established news makers. Their utterances become news and are therefore powerful in the eyes of the
interviewer. However we rarely hear from people who are not considered newsworthy but who are actually the real
power brokers, working behind the scenes but still immensely influential such as the trade unionists, the secretary
general of the UN, the head of MI5, council leaders or a newspaper proprietor.
And there is another important group of people I would call the "pioneers", whose ideas `may today be regarded as
totally beyond the pale but become the conventional wisdom of tomorrow. How would Paxman have dealt with
Gandhi, or Snow with Mrs Pankhurst, or Humphrys with Nelson Mandela at a time when they were seen as both
irrelevant and dangerous?
Even when political interviewers end up speaking to someone who exists outside the corridors of Whitehall, the way
they are introduced can affect the audience's take on their views. I put it to the interviewers that introducing
someone as a "Labour rebel", for example, might taint listeners, and viewers' perspective: automatically giving the
audience the opportunity to discount their opinions because, after all, they are a "rebel".
Robinson told me that using, "a form of shorthand, a shrinking cast," is a result of time constraints. "I get on air for an
average news bulletin the length of a Sun newspaper editorial," he said. "We're talking of low hundreds of words ...
it's trying to get the audience to where you want them in terms of making sense of the story." He did concede there
was a danger of affecting the audience's judgment but argued that issuing factual information would mean you
would "end up telling people nothing at all".
To me, this lends weight to my case that if political interviewers carried out longer, more relaxed interviews, they
would not only discover more information, they would produce a more factual account. I found some sympathy for
this argument from Paxman who said: "It's a fight you have every day with the editor - 'how long have we got for
this? Four minutes? You know, we need eight' - well you have these scraps every day, usually you lose, you just do
it in the time." Snow, however, took a more pragmatic view, telling me: "If you can't say it in 30 seconds, it isn't worth
saying."
ENORMOUS POWER
I was interested to see who the interviewers thought they were accountable to. As a member of parliament for more
than 50 years I was employed by 60,000 people - everyone in my constituency - and if they became dissatisfied with
my performance they could get rid of me. Whereas it seems that political interviewers wield enormous power yet
aren't necessarily accountable to anyone. All four told me they were accountable to the audience, and to some
degree the ratings. Snow told me: "Sometimes people write to me and say, 'I'll never view you again, so I write back
and say, 'give me one more chance, I've taken note of what you say' and I hope to get them to stay with us."
All the interviewers seemed united in what they hoped to get out of an interview - Humphrys described it as: "A
better informed audience." Paxman said: "If you were looking for one sentence I suppose it would be that you're
trying to find things out." While for Snow it is to: "Shine a light on what is going on, and if that causes trouble, well so
be it."
While I have no doubt of their intentions and great respect for all four interviewers I do question whether they can
ever reveal and expose the truths they wish to when so many important voices appear to be excluded from their
programmes, when the language they use colours the audience's views before they have a chance to make their
minds up and when their approach curbs the opportunity for a real debate. I hope that my programme will offer an
alternative way of approaching the interview that could maybe, in Snow's words: "Shine a light on what is going on."
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| Interviewing the Interviewers |
| Guardian - 7th August - by Tony Benn |
| www.tonybenn.net |