A Point of View

By Brian Walden

In his weekly opinion column, Brian Walden grabs the hot seat and considers the art of the interview.

Newspapers aren't as a rule particularly kind to television and radio's political interviewers, because they regard most broadcasters as exhibitionists.

Paxman has quizzed all three leaders

However for the most part newspapers have found this election exceptionally tedious. So in the last week several newspapers have rebuked politicians for being dull and lacking in passion, while praising the BBC's political interviewers.

Even the sober "Daily Telegraph" wrote in an editorial "this has been an astonishingly boring election campaign so far, except for the quality of the broadcasters. For all the me-me-me quality of John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman, they are at least showmen, in an election that is desperately in need of some razzmatazz."

Well, I never! Praise indeed eh! Trebles all round! And ignore the me-me-me bit. The press usually says something like that. Nothing will ever shake the average newspaperman's view that broadcasters either are, or want to be, part of show business. Actually the banter is light-hearted because there never was a time with so much interchange between broadcasting and newspapers.

The art of the question

These compliments to the interviewing fraternity have stirred me up to want to talk about interviewing. And to talk about it frankly. How you become an interviewer, why it's done like it is and what are its techniques? My qualifications for discussing the subject are that I've been a politician and a political interviewer. In fact there was a day back in 1977 when I woke up as a politician with no thought of being anything else, but went to bed that night about to become a political interviewer.

John Birt, who was then Head of Current Affairs at London Weekend Television, rang up and invited me to lunch. Over the meal Birt, who had devised a programme called "Weekend World," which went out at Sunday lunchtime, told me that his interviewer, Peter Jay, was going to become British ambassador to Washington. It was the first I'd heard of this and I was puzzled that Birt should tell me.

Then I noticed he was looking at me in a strange way as if I was a pet white mouse he was about to offer a piece of cheese. And so he was. He offered me Peter Jay's job.

I was very surprised, no such thought having crossed my mind. And why would it? In those days Members of Parliament didn't leave the House of Commons to become television interviewers. The traffic was all the other way. Robin Day was hopelessly romantic on the subject, stressing how he'd love to be in Parliament.

Smiling, but not friendly

Nevertheless, despite the absence of precedents, I accepted John Birt's offer right there at the table. Roy Jenkins, who also left Parliament to go to Brussels was astonished at the speed of my departure.

"This is not so much withdrawal as headlong flight," he said.

I was whisked off to be presented to the journalists who worked on "Weekend World." I was a politician who was about to become their presenter and they greeted me with the degree of enthusiasm the crew of the Bounty must have shown for Captain Bligh.

That soon changed for the better.

They were a distinguished bunch, including the novelist Nick Evans who wrote the novel "The Horse Whisperer" which was made into a film. And someone else you may have heard of - Peter Mandelson. He was extremely diligent and learnt a lot, perhaps more than we bargained for.

Stop smiling! stop smiling! Get tough Walden! Get tough! David Cox, Walden's first editor

My induction into the mysteries of interviewing came from my first editor David Cox. He was quite simply a genius, but he had a deep-seated horror of any show of fellow feeling between interviewer and guest. He thought it stirred the suspicions of viewers.

My first interview was with the Leader of the Opposition, Margaret Thatcher. What I remember is Cox shouting down the earpiece "stop smiling! stop smiling! Get tough Walden! Get tough!"

Why did it have to be like that? Well to understand this obsession with aggression and the avoidance of even the slightest hint of collusion between interviewer and interviewee, it helps to remember the history of television interviewing.

It began at a time when Britain was still a deferential country. There's a famous interview with Clem Attlee, which I think is dug out of the BBC archives occasionally as an awful warning to promising young people.

Times have changed

Anthony Eden called the 1955 general election while Attlee was out of the country and Attlee was interviewed at the airport on his return.

"Had he anything to say about the election?" he was asked politely.

"No, nothing at all," said Attlee.

"Was there anything he wanted to say about anything?" he was asked.

"No," said Attlee.

"Thank you very much sir," said the interviewer.

Everything about that reeks of fifty years ago. Not only the courtesy and deference, but also Attlee's total inability even to spot, much less grasp, a public relations opportunity. It was a nicer world in many ways, but not one that appealed to television editors like David Cox.

Margaret Thatcher had turned up in one of his studios. He didn't want courtesy. He wanted an interviewer who'd question her as if he was appearing for the Revolutionary Tribunal against Queen Marie Antoinette.

I ignored the ordinance against smiling, but took careful note of the editor's blueprint for interviews.

Four possible answers

Here we come to the matter of technique.

Cox claimed there were four possible answers to a direct question, "Yes," "No," "Don't Know" and "Won't Say." He insisted that a different supplementary question should be prepared for each of the four replies.

And then again for the next answer.

Humphrys on the Today programme

On paper his plan for an interview looked like the family tree of England's Kings and Queens. If you wanted to use this plan, then it had to be learnt, because interviewers don't actually read any of the papers they hold in their hands, any more than they ever write anything with the pens some of them waggle about.

The pens and papers are props, because for some reason they look right. Interviewers are ill-advised to try to read anything, for one should never break eye contact with interviewees. If you do, they relax and when they relax their answers get longer and more irrelevant.

Despite everything, most of the advantages in an interview rest with the politician. Clever ones know this and disconcert interviewers.

I once asked John Biffen, a member of Thatcher's cabinet, "hasn't the government abjectly surrendered on this issue?"

"Yes, it has," he said, knowing that I'd built the interview around proving he was wrong to say "no."

So he didn't say it, explaining that everybody has to surrender some times. He left me groping for something to say.

After the fact

What is said when an interview is over can be more revealing than the interview itself.

After an interview with Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election, he asked me if it would be considered proper in England were he to ask Mrs Thatcher for her autograph? I thought, "he's pulling my leg," but he wasn't laughing. While I was trying to think of an answer Reagan added, "of course I wouldn't ask her unless I won."

(Incidentally, Reagan was the most pleasant politician I ever met, always the same whatever the occasion public or private.)

Finally let me answer the question I'm most often asked.

"Why do some contemporary interviewers start offensively by saying something like: 'Well, you've made a right mess of this, haven't you?'" The answer is that whereas I often got fifty minutes for an interview, many present day interviewers have to get the job done in five or ten minutes.

There's no time for subtlety, so they go straight for the jugular. Time makes all the difference. Politicians come to an interview knowing what they want to say. If one can sit back and let them get this off their chest they feel they've made their point. Then the real interview can begin - the one for which they haven't rehearsed the answers.

Too much news?

But another broader issue is involved. Broadcasters, quite rightly, try to give society the sort of interview they think it wants. Commentators are constantly told that most people distrust politicians and, at a time of relative prosperity, are bored by politics. So short and snappy is the order of the day.

The present election campaign seems dull, because many of the important long-term issues are not being discussed. Nobody believes that the voters have the patience to listen to them. If this is a misjudgement it's a universal one in political circles.

Nobody associated with politics is going to raise their game until there's clear evidence that taking the high road will be rewarded.

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