Edition 545

Good morning. It’s Monday 14th September.

There are a couple of broadcasters out there who I regularly watch or listen to, despite having zero interest in the subject they are talking about.

Steve Bunce is one, the BBC’s Boxing correspondent. I loathe that sport but I could listen to him talk about it for hours.

Another is Monty Don. His authenticity, his pace and his intimacy of delivery is unparalleled. Nobody comes close.

He announced last week he is leaving Gardener’s World. It’s amazing how often I tune into that programme, despite having absolutely no interest whatsoever in gardening. Monty is the reason.

To Mock Or Not To Mock…

Monday: Commons debate on Israel and Palestine following UK sanctions announcement.

Paul Nowak addresses the Trades Union Congress.


Tuesday: Thirlwall Inquiry into Lucy Letby publishes final report.


Wednesday: NATS preliminary report on air traffic control outage due.


Thursday: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivers speech to European Parliament.

London Fashion Week begins.

Friday: New album of unheard David Bowie music released.


Saturday: Scottish Labour announces new leader.

Liberal Democrats autumn conference begins.


Sunday: Legislative elections in Russia.

Number 2/20: 



“In theory presenters should always check the pronunciation of concepts or titles. However, in the heat of a live sequence we do get stuff wrong. If something – including your name – is mispronounced, you should make a call based on two factors. Is a correction going to help the audience – or it it going to bother you if you remain quiet? If the answer to either is yes, the correction should be friendly and brief. One of our delegates spent two thirds of an interview putting me right!”

“The current charter will expire on 31 December 2027, and its replacement is now the subject of lobbying, scaremongering and dealmaking as its contents are debated, tugged apart and rewritten.”

Barbara Speed in the Guardian on charter renewal – and whether it will secure the BBC’s long-term future.

“As Andy Burnham plans to devolve powers and tax revenues from Westminster to England’s regional mayors, something is missing from his vision: a robust local media sector that can hold local officials to account for their decisions and spending.”

A strong editorial from the FT (and atow free to read) on the urgent need to revive regional journalism.

On This Day… Moscow retaliated two days after Britain expelled 25 Soviet spies following the defection of KGB chief Oleg Gordievsky on this day in 1985.



Our Week: London and Wigan for us this week.

The Mutts …All the way from Vancouver…very special guest mutt Theo makes a welcome return to the MMB. Thanks to reader Jonny for the smoking post-salon pic:

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done, please let us know.

Back on Monday. Have a brilliant week.



All at Inside Edge

Edition 544

Good morning. It’s Monday 7th September.

Let Your Note Crack:

Welcome back. Since the last briefing I’ve pretty much lived at the Royal Albert Hall after treating myself to a season pass to this year’s Proms.

(86 concerts over eight weeks, the greatest music festival on the planet, and as the BBC battles to demonstrate its uniqueness it seems odd how quietly it whispers about the festival’s existence beyond the flag waving stuff of the Last Night.) 

The reason I mention this: something I thought about as I stood with the other Prommers – “imperfect excellence” and its relevance to us as on air spokespeople.

Here’s an example: Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic. A rockstar conductor with an iconic orchestra playing one of the world’s great symphonies, Beethoven’s Pastoral. Performed beautifully, with one exception. The principal Horn player, clearly a brilliant musician, just had one of those nights. Exposed notes cracking at crucial moments in phrases. 

What was interesting about this moment (and many others across the season) is that it didn’t ruin the experience at all, in fact it enhanced it. The air crackled. This is after all what live performance is all about. And while there’s a tipping point where imperfection compromises excellence, we were miles from that line. 

So it seems strange for a media trainer to advise you to be anything other than perfect, but who wants perfect from an interviewee? Who wants slick? Nobody. Um and ur away, correct yourself, pause to think of a word…

Do too much of that and you lose the excellence and it just becomes imperfection. But most people judge an interview on small slip-ups which nobody else notices or minds. In fact they like them. It makes you authentic. Human. 

So feel liberated to be imperfect on air. In a world where standards are increasingly defined by AI precision, just let your note crack occasionally.

(Watch the performance)

Monday: John Healey reportedly set to make his first major speech on the government’s economic agenda.


Tuesday: Canadian retaliatory tariffs on the US come into effect.



Wednesday: Funeral for Norway’s King Harald.

Apple iPhone launch event, first since John Ternus became CEO.



Thursday:  Bayeux Tapestry exhibition opens.

Donald Trump delivers keynote at Republican midterm convention.



Friday: 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.



Saturday: US Open women’s final.



Sunday: Trades Union Congress opens.

Number 1/20: 



“Always get to see or hear your broadcast interviews. People often arrive at our coaching feeling disappointed, even scarred, by previous on air appearances. Yet it’s often negative self talk rather than evidence causing dips in confidence as most haven’t actually witnessed how they did. Brace yourself. Watch and get over that accent or expression. We’re all self conscious about appearance. When you focus on content, I bet there’s many things that have gone right; you can then put the more wobbly aspects in perspective.”

First up, and for obvious reasons a chance to reprint one of my favourite ever headlines, from the New York Times:

Mic Wright bang on the money as usual:

Read the article (Substack)

And not unrelated…

An interesting article from The Guardian’s Damian Carrington on how right wing TV outlets such as GB News and Talk TV covered this summer’s heatwave.


Generous Casting: Rupert Murdoch says he’s “very happy” Guy Pearce is playing him in Danny Boyle’s biopic about the early days of The Sun. 

(I’ll bet he is.)

Ink is scheduled for release in January:

On This Day… Three more people died in the food poisoning epidemic at hospitals in Yorkshire, bringing the total number of deaths to 22 on this day in 1984.



Our Week: London and Brighton.

The Mutts …have had a lovely summer. A little hot for them at points, but some good times…

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done, please let us know.

Back on Monday. Have a brilliant week.



All at Inside Edge

Edition 542

Good morning. It’s Monday 20th July.

Last week we blamed the heat for a grumpy feature entitled Bad Advice: words of apparent wisdom given to people ahead of media interviews.

These included howlers like “take 3 key messages into an interview” and “always name-check the presenter on air.” 

It seemed to go down pretty well, so here’s another…

“Start an interview by thanking the presenter for the opportunity to appear.”

Fairly Interesting Question Number 1: 

From the Guardian:

A brilliant long(-ish) read on Paul Dacre et al.

Fairly Interesting Question Number 2:

Posed in the (always excellent) Poynter media newsletter:

Update: 


Here’s a rundown of what the different networks actually decided to do.

Stories scheduled for the week ahead: 

Monday: Andy Burnham replaces Keir Starmer as prime minister and begins announcing Cabinet appointments.

Tuesday: Donald Trump hosts Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House. 

Wednesday: Inflation data.
Financial results from Tesla, Google and IBM.

Thursday: Commonwealth Games begin in Glasgow.

Friday: Rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Saturday: Anthony Joshua fights Kristian Prenga in Saudi Arabia.

Sunday: International AIDS conference.

Released last week the BBC’s Annual Report lists the salaries of staff earning above £178k. (My former colleague describes it as her Christmas Day).

Top Lines from the newsroom: 

Two people earn more than £400k – Stephen Nolan and Laura Kuenssberg

Fifty-one journalists earned more than the £178,000 threshold

Anna Foster, who became a Today programme presenter in April 2025 now earns £315,000-£319,999.

Matt Chorley, the former Times Radio presenter who joined 5 Live to helm a daily politics show in September earned between £230,000 and £234,999.

Footnotes:

My fascination with the images that news organisations choose to illustrate the heatwave continues unabated.

Here’s one from BBC Online:

Sunflowers. A strange choice perhaps, given this was the week it was reported more than 2,700 people may have died in these heatwaves.

Meanwhile Guardian analysis of nearly 2,500 heatwave articles finds almost three-quarters made no reference to global heating at all.

On This Day… Thousands of Turkish troops invaded northern Cyprus after last-minute talks in Athens failed to reach a solution on this day in 1974.

Our Week: London, Portsmouth and Sheffield this week.

The Mutts:

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done, please let us know.

Back on Monday with one more before the break. Have a brilliant week.



All at Inside Edge

Edition 541

Good morning. It’s Monday 13th July.

Blame the heat, but I’m feeling increasingly irritated at so-called media training tips people tell me they’ve been told over the years which I believe to be terrible advice.

For instance…

Or:

“Always name-check the presenter in interviews”

No. Just… no. It’s one of those bits of media training folklore that’s been passed around for years, despite there being no evidence it achieves anything.

The audience already knows who the presenter is. They don’t need reminding every 30 seconds. If anything, it can make the interview sound like a private chat between two media people rather than a conversation with the listener.

And then there’s live broadcasting. Breaking news happens. The presenter changes at the last minute. The programme is reshuffled. You open confidently with, “Well, Ben…” The person on the other end says, “It’s John.”


Not ideal.


Or worse, you’ve accidentally called them by the name of the colleague they’ve spent the last 15 years sharing a 4am alarm with, quietly competing against for airtime, and privately complaining about in the green room. So you’ve managed to irritate the presenter before you’ve even answered the first question.

With the heatwave due to continue all week my plan is to return grumpily to more of these next Monday.

What did The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar mean by this?

This explainer from Media Editor Michael Savage exposes the dark arts routinely deployed by newspaper editors and political parties…

The Newsgathering Diary takes a week off as I’m writing this particular edition well ahead of time. 
Normal service resumes next Monday.

Apologies.

The Sky/ITV Merger:

“Sky’s proposed transaction will ensure that Sky News and ITV News remain editorially independent, continue to serve the UK with distinct editorial voices, and give everyone the robust and regional choices they deserve. We’ll remain free to air, and we’ll commit ourselves to making the best global, national and regional news accessible to the broadest digital audiences – through the technology investments our company has committed to our newsroom today and well into the future.”

David Rhodes

Executive Chairman, Sky News Group

The Rest Is Entertainment team do a good segment on the implications of the merger towards the end of their Taylor/Travis episode.

Footnotes:

On This Day… Ruth Ellis – now posthumously pardoned – was hanged at Holloway Prison on this day in 1955.

Our Week: Again, Brighton and London this week.

Photo of the week: (h/t Andy Mc)

The Mutt Photo:

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done, please let us know.

Back on Monday. Have a brilliant week.



All at Inside Edge