Journalists: Do Your Job

Like everyone else who doesn't slavishly believe that that everything the failing Leader of the Opposition does is solid gold (should any of them still exist), I had a lot of fun laughing at that Ed Miliband interview. Come on, you know the one I mean - the one where he comes across like a political speak-your-weight machine, unable to change what he is saying in any meaningful way. For Ed Miliband, spin is king, and he doesn't mind coming across as an unthinking, arrogant bore in order to get his facile soundbite across.

But there is a wider problem here, and it is revealed in the journalist who conducted the interview's own words:

If news reporters and cameras are only there to be used by politicians as recording devices for their scripted soundbites, at best that is a professional discourtesy. At worst, if we are not allowed to explore and examine a politician’s views, then politicians cease to be accountable in the most obvious way. So the fact that the unedited interview has found its way onto YouTube in all its absurdity, to be laughed at along with all the clips of cats falling off sofas, is perfectly proper.

Afterwards, I was overcome with a feeling of shame. I couldn’t look him in the eye.

But before I dried up completely, and had to be led out of Westminster with my mouth opening and shutting, I had an opportunity to ask one last question. I had an urge to say something so stupid, so flippant that he would either have to answer it, or get up and leave. `What is the world’s fastest fish?’ `Can your dog do tricks?’ `Which is your favourite dinosaur?’ But, of course, this was a pool interview, and I had no wish to feed out the end of my television career to Sky and the BBC.

I realise now, of course, the perfect question to ask, to embarrass him and to keep my job. I should have asked was whether the strikes were wrong, whether the rhetoric had got out of hand, and whether it was time for both sides to get round the negotiating table before it happened again.

Because that was the only answer I ever got.

In a sense, he's right - if journalists are only allowed to get soundbites from politicians, then politicians cannot really be held to account for what they believe and what they propose to do/actually do. But who can avert this, I hear you ask. Well, journalists. They should man the fuck up and actually interview people properly. Ed Miliband just feeding you the same, banal line? Well, call him on it. Say that's what he's doing, and ask him to actually answer the questions you put to him. Yeah, he might get hacked off and he might not want you to interview him again. But at least you will have done your job, and your company will have evidence of Ed Miliband - soundbite man. Yes, it might be difficult and yes, it might be uncomfortable. But seriously, if you are looking for an easy profession, you chose the wrong one my friend.