“Oh come on, we’re not gonna start there, we’re not gonna start on misconduct…”

Train wreck interview number 1 from Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley, desperately keen to talk about a lick of paint for a police station and rather less keen to talk about systemic problems in his force. 

According to ITV News reporter Sam Holder, “We were told we could ask anything. However that turned out not to be the case.”

WATCH HERE

It’s Monday 26 June.

Good morning. The week ahead…

Monday: Hajj begins 

Tuesday: Launch window opens for Virgin Galactic’s first commercial spaceflight

RCN strike ballot result expected

Wednesday: Kevin Spacey stands trial on a string of sexual assault charges

Second men’s Ashes test begins

Thursday: (and Friday) EU Leaders Summit 

Friday: The government’s attempt to block its own inquiry from accessing Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages is heard at the High Court

Saturday: London and Madrid Pride rallies



UK assumes presidency of the UN Security Council

“I don’t feel that I’m prepared at all for this, Ami. And it’s all getting a little bit above my station, sorry.”

Train wreck interview number 2 from Lib Dem candidate for Somerton and Frome Sarah Dyke for the Guardian politics podcast. Asked about deprivation in the area she said she’d drunk her coffee a bit too fast, before asking “what do you want to know?”

Enter stage left Ami (the aforementioned Lib Dem press officer) who suggests getting the candidate a glass of water before the interview is terminated. 

LISTEN HERE (12 minutes in)

Rare Shameless Plug…

I was asked to run a series of half day sessions on Pitching to Journalists last week. We gathered insights from a wide range of senior producers and print editors and there are some terrific tips. It works well for small or big groups, online or in-person. As you know the MMB is never about plugging stuff, but we put a lot of work into it and are proud of the result, so if you’d like more info give us a shout. 

(CNN’s Media Correspondent Oliver Darcy on the extraordinary events in Russia this weekend…)

On the Inside Edge website – Tony’s A-Z of media training: 

I is for Indent:

There is no “right” length to an interview answer but it might be helpful to visualise your wording as if it was laid out on a page. A paragraph should embody a single thought so a few sentences is a pretty good baseline for an answer that allows you to get in to a bit of substance but is also digestible for the presenter and audience. Expand on some responses; be sharper with others. Variety is good. A para that last a whole page is never good – so edit yourself or you will be interrupted.

READ MORE

BBC Breakfast proudly unveils its new studio. Which looks strikingly similar to the old one…

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done. We’re @insideedgemedia or just reply to this email. 

Footnotes:

“Ich bin ein Berliner.” JFK made his ground-breaking speech in Berlin offering American solidarity to the citizens of West Germany on this day in 1963. 120,000 Berliners gathered to hear the President speak.

Highs of 23 degrees in London today and 20 in Newcastle.

And this week’s dog-pic-footnote…lazy sunny days

Back on Monday. Have a super week.



Team Inside Edge

“Uxbridge residents stick by Boris Johnson despite Partygate report.”

How many doom-scrollers read this tweet from BBC Politics and didn’t bother clicking on the link? 

Me, for one.

You might reasonably conclude the BBC had commissioned some polling, particularly ahead of a crucial by-election. 

Wrong.

It turns out the link takes you to a write-up of a glorified vox pop, speaking to the grand total of…just let me get my calculator out here…6 people. (And one of those is actually “shaking with anger” at his contempt for the former PM.)

As polling expert Dr Will Jennings observes, “Vox pops are not a reliable tool for ascertaining voting intentions. Just think about the unrepresentativeness of who you might find to interview on a high street on a weekday. Pollsters were grappling with methodological challenges of where interviews are conducted 70 years ago.” 

I hate vox pops anyway. I hated them as a producer and I hate them now. But to grandly state that “Uxbridge residents stick by Boris Johnson” after speaking to the 6 people who could be bothered to stop and talk to the reporter is unforgivable.

READ MORE

It’s Monday 19th June.

Good morning. The week ahead…

Monday: David Cameron becomes the first politician to appear before the Covid-19 inquiry

Tuesday: Campsfield migrant centre planning decision due

Wednesday:  Latest inflation figures 

PM hosts the Ukraine Recovery Conference (and Thursday)

Thursday: Bank of England interest rate decision 

Friday: RCN ballot closes for nurses’ strike mandate

Seven years ago: UK held referendum on EU membership

Saturday: General election in Sierra Leone

The Reuters Digital News report for 2023 claims to reveal the 10 biggest news podcasts in the UK. 

(Note these aren’t necessarily the most-listened to. According to Reuters’ Nic Newman, “we use online survey methodologies to identify some of the most popular news podcasts.”)

Anyway, here are the runners and riders:

1. The Rest Is Politics
2. Newscast 
3. The News Agents 
4. Americast
5. Today In Focus (The Guardian) 
6. Ukrainecast 
7. The New Statesman Podcast 
8. Joe Rogan Experience
9. The Trawl 
10. Oh God, What Now? 

75% of podcast hosts of top-mentioned shows are men. 31% come from the BBC. 

READ MORE

On the Inside Edge website – Tony’s A-Z of media training: 

H is for Heritage:

A word that has associations of Tudor piles and gothic churches for many – but not for some scientists. It can mean to researchers the background and history of investigations in a particular field. And there lies the problem. A mass media audience does not have time in the flow of an interview to work out what you mean. So healthcheck your terms – is there ambiguity? If so, explain it – or find another way of describing what matters.

READ MORE

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done. We’re @insideedgemedia or just reply to this email. 

Footnotes:

An inquest jury decided Lord Lucan did murder the 29-year-old nanny of his three young children on this day in 1975.

Highs of 22 degrees in Liverpool today and 20 in Swansea.

And this week’s dog-pic-footnote…

Back on Monday. Have a good week.



Team Inside Edge

“Good journalism has nothing to do with sucking up to would-be authoritarians but rather it demands brave truth-telling.”

CNN Chief Chris Licht is given the boot. The always excellent Margaret Sullivan explains why…

READ MORE

It’s Monday 12th June.

Good morning. The week ahead…

Monday: Legal attempts to stop asylum seeker camps being built in Wethersfield and Scampton are heard in the Court of Appeal

Tuesday: Evidence hearings begin in the Covid-19 Inquiry

Donald Trump will appear in court in Miami 

Wednesday: ITV Chief executive Carolyn McCall is quizzed by MPs on the channel’s handling of the Philip Schofield affair

Junior doctors begin three-day strike

Monthly UK GDP estimate

Thursday: 2023/24 Premier League fixtures announced

Friday: The Ashes first test begins

“I’ll tell you what’s toxic and I’ve always found it toxic. Aubergine. Do you like aubergine?”

Regular readers of the MMB will know we’ve a fairly short fuse when it comes to people playing it cute when being door-stepped by a press pack.

I’m yet to see an example of anyone adopting this tactic coming out with any credit and I’d include Gary Lineker – though there are many who disagree. However one thing on which we can surely all unite is that This Morning Editor Martin Frizell’s bizarre, smug response is a crashing new low…

Asked about the incident in front of a House of Commons committee Magnus Brooke, ITV’s director of strategy, policy and regulation said it was

“extremely ill-judged to say what he did”.

A disastrous visual at precisely the moment ITV were trying (and failing) to control the narrative. No wonder it didn’t go down well with his boss. As SNP MP John Nicolson observed:

“I wouldn’t like to be a young staffer going in talking to that editor about bullying given that that’s the way he treats the subject matter on camera in public.”

I thought it was interesting that at the PM’s immigration press conference after his photo op in Dover last week he took questions from the following:

The BBC

Channel 5

The Daily Mail

The Sun

The Times

Kent Online

ITV Meridian

Hardly a broad spectrum is it?

Cat Interrupts Interview. Example 45,763

WATCH HERE

On the Inside Edge website – Tony’s A-Z of media training: 

G is for Gratitude:

Getting an interview request is a form of affirmation – journalists are interested in what you are doing or saying. But don’t let a warm glow cloud your judgement. As producers while we’re trying to get you signed up to the process we can be sweetness and light, but we could be jotting down at the same time the sort of challenging areas the presenter might lob at you when the camera is rolling. Accept that interviews can be robust but draw strength from effective preparation.

READ MORE

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done. We’re @insideedgemedia or just reply to this email. 

Footnotes:

Aged just 55, Labour leader John Smith died on this day in 1994.

Highs of 25 degrees in Ipswich today and 24 in Glasgow.

And this week’s dog-pic-footnote…Stan has a new cushion:

Back on Monday. Have a good week.



Team Inside Edge

“It really gets my goat when there’s a story with a journalist talking about how they feel…”

The BBC’s International Editor Jeremy Bowen quoted at the Hay Festival expressing his irritation at reporters who insert emotions into their reports.

“I don’t give a damn about how they feel…while I myself have had some rough days, that’s not the story. If I’m miserable about it, it’s not the story. It’s not about me.”

READ MORE (paywall)

It’s Monday 5th June.

Good morning. The week ahead…

Monday: Prince Harry is back in the High Court as his battle with Mirror Group Newspapers continues – expected to take the stand Tuesday.

Tuesday: CBI members gather to vote on proposals for the organisation’s future purpose.

ITV quizzed on Phillip Schofield at Draft Media Bill committee session.

Wednesday: Mike Pence expected to launch 2024 campaign.

Thursday: Rishi Sunak makes his first official visit to Washington to meet with US President Joe Biden.

Friday: World Beard and Moustache Championship 

Here’s a question. What percentage of the UK population can remember the 52/48 split in the Brexit Referendum of 2016.

I’ll pop the answer in the footnotes, but have a read of this excellent blogpost from Mark Pack, which opens with this line:

A good rule of thumb is that the more involved you are in politics, the more you over-estimate how much everyone else knows about politics.

READ MORE

Westminster Insider’s latest podcast on the art of the political interview won’t tell you too much you didn’t already know, but it’s a cracking cast list, and Nick Robinson tells a terrific anecdote about Paddy Ashdown excelling in the dark art of unattributable briefings…

LISTEN HERE

The Sun is the least trusted newsbrand in the UK and the BBC is the most trusted, according to new research by Yougov.

READ MORE

On the Inside Edge website – Tony’s A-Z of media training: 

F is for Fine-tuning:

Overlong preparation can be counter productive but some advance thinking and talking is essential. By saying that illustration aloud you’ll be able to gauge if you need to cut back on the background and get to the really revealing details quicker. It’s not about scripting but it is about testing important elements out conversationally. Share your ideas with a non–specialist in your field; a good indicator of how your words will land with a mainstream audience.

READ MORE

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done. We’re @insideedgemedia or just reply to this email. 

Footnotes:

Re You The Editor from a fortnight ago – I’ve been (quite rightly) taken to task by a couple of readers for relegating the results of the Northern Ireland local elections to the lower end of the running order.

7 years on, 1 in 3 Brits can recall the 52/48 EU referendum result.

John Profumo resigned from government, admitting he lied to Parliament about his relationship with a call girl on this day in 1963.

Highs of 23 degrees in Glasgow today and 19 in Brighton.

And this week’s dog-pic-footnote…my brother’s dog Vesper. He (sibling, not canine) claims to read every word of the Briefing, so this will be an excellent test of whether that is actually the case. 

Back on Monday. Have a good week.



Team Inside Edge