TV journalists’ relentless pursuit of the viral ‘car-crash interview’ is driving nuance and reasoning from the campaignSpeaking at an event devoted to “healing the nation” at the beginning of this
election campaign, Robbie Gibb, recently knighted for his role as Theresa May’s communications chief, briefly lost it with a fellow panellist. The head of Sky News, Christina Nicolotti Squires, was explaining the corrosive effect of anonymous briefings on political stories. Gibb agreed up to a point, but responded bluntly that such concerns were a sideshow in the changing relationship between politicians and the media. A far bigger problem, he claimed, lay in the effect of social platforms, particularly
Twitter, on the strategy of political interviewers on radio and TV.
“Back in the day, the role of reporter and presenter was to act as an agent for viewers at home, wanting to know what’s going on,” Gibb argued. “What’s happening now is that the incentives are ‘retweets’ and ‘likes’, which totally distorts the type of interview which is done.”