Nearly One ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳
It's always great to get a scoop - and even nicer to get two for the price of one.
So, last week, when Anita Anand managed to convince Sir Gulam Noon to respond to (about the curry tycoon having been told by Lord Levy not to reveal his £250k loan to the Labour Party), I was pretty chuffed.
Using her own contacts and some good old-fashioned persuasion Anita encouraged a pretty reluctant Noon to put his side of the story (hear the interview here). He refused to implicate his Lordship directly but did go as far as is decent for a Knight of the Realm in venting his not inconsiderable displeasure with the whole farrago.
We're not great at blowing our own trumpets on these occasions. But I did alert the Press Association newsdesk, other ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ programmes and the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ press office.
The world and his dog started chasing Sir Gulam to see if he would throw them a bone too but he'd said his piece. So Anita's was the only interview they had to go on and there was great pick up in the papers the next day. Some mentioning Anita and her programme, others mentioning Five Live, some just the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and others, well, giving no credit at all (it's annoying when that happens but which of us can hold our hands up and say we haven't used others' storylines without a proper plug?).
The icing on the top of the Levy/Noon cake was hearing Sarah Montague introduce Anita's interview, in full, on the following morning's Today programme. At the end of the interview she gave Anita another name-check.
There was a time, not too long ago, when internal rivalries meant that if a ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ programme used material from other ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ outlets, an interview like this would have been filleted for the best clips, cutting out the 'rival' talent. And on those rare occasions when a credit was given it would have been barely audible as it was spat out through the presenter's gritted teeth.
We're not quite One ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ yet, but we are getting there.
Comments
Following on from the pronunciation, perhaps it could be confirmed how to say my surname of ENGLAND - as in not IN-GER-LAND or any other such way!