Piece of string
How long should an interview be ?
Clearly a pretty stupid question, to which the only proper response can be "it depends", but it's one many of us have to answer several times a day.
We all (even those editing continuous news services) have a limited amount of time. We all want to cover more stories than we can fit. We all want to give interviews long enough to be interesting and informative. It can only end in tears... and I often wonder whether we (and here I'll start limiting it to my programmes lest I annoy some colleagues) get it right.
Take yesterday. We covered three stories in the main body of the programme (which you can listen to 
here) - the crime figures (two sets); the Conservatives' Tax Commission report; and the cost and disruption of court cases stalling or collapsing through mistakes, last-minute plea changes and so on. Those of you kind enough to listen to The World at One will know we tend to have at least one main interview or discussion in each story, preceded (or occasionally followed) by some shorter interviews helping to give some context or reaction. Today our three main interviews were with the Police Minister Tony McNulty, the Chairman of the Tax Commission Lord Forsyth and the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith. Today I reckon I got the first two about right and the last one wrong... but as yet I'm not sure how that felt wherever the programme played out.
On most stories I reckon we need to give a decent amount of information and/or a reasonable spread of views. I think the crime sequence would have been much the poorer without our former Home Office advisor and criminologist... and the five contributors ahead of Lord Forsyth did a fine job in setting out some of the arguments around the economics and politics of tax cuts. But, left with just over six minutes for the court story, was three enough in which to ask the attorney general how he thought the failings could be tackled? I felt we had to set out the criticisms from the Public Accounts Committee... but maybe we should have just spent more time with Lord Goldsmith to try to explore his ideas. The last interview certainly felt too rushed and I'm not sure we got a huge amount from it. (I can tell by now you're desperately sad you don't have to take part in our post-programme meetings.)
Anyway, the specifics of today's programme don't matter that much... and I'm sure there will be some who disagree with our story choice to start with. But I would genuinely be interested to know whether listeners would prefer fewer contributions and longer main interviews... or whether it's the context that makes the difference between predictable and informative.
By the way, for those who missed it there was an elegant end to the Paxman/Alan Duncan interview on Wednesday's Newsnight, where both accepted that to continue for the time set aside would be pointless. If only we could transfer free time across networks.
Comments
To those who bash American television journalism, perhaps they have overlooked the fact that besides the programs and networks which are expressly dedicated to "news only", there are countless other programs which explore individual issues in great depth. These can be seen around the clock on stations such as C-Span, C-Span 2, and C-Span 3 which will devote an hour or more to an individual topic or interview. It can be an interview with a newsmaker, subject matter expert, panel discussion, discussion of a book with its author and questions from an audience in an informal setting such as a bookstore. There are also PBS interviews such as the Charley Rose Show every night where individual interviews last up to an hour, Larry King live which can cover any topic from the trite to the profound for an hour at a time. The wealth of news related television available to the American viewing public is virtually in overload, far more than anyone can absorb. ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ may be the entire news universe domestically in Britain and in many other nations but against that panoply in the US, its only one of many elements.
I challenge you to attempt the impossible.
Organise an event that will tell us as much about the participants as about the subject matter.
For example the top echelons of the various religious hierarchies around the same table.
How do they interpret the results of celibacy, restriction of the hierarchy to men, adoption of religious law instead of statute law.
How do they decide on the interpretation of written requirements of their religions?
For example in the recent controversy about veils, does modesty in dress depend on where you are and the opinions of those around you?
I was interested to read concern about the amount of time given to interviews. How many times in the morning have I listened to an interview where everything that can possibly be said has been completed within the first couple of minutes or when it is obvious (and admittedly of great interest) that the respondent clearly isn't going to answer a question. But to then have to listen to a further 3 minutes or so of exactly the same questioning simply because it fills the required time slot often becomes unbearable since the mounting irritation between an interviewer and respondent increasingly frustrated with each other invariably obscures the most important and revealing point - that the respondent didn't answer the question in the first place. By the time the interview has struggled to closure I am usually more annoyed with the interviewer for repeating ad infinitum a line of enquiry they are clearly going to get no response from than with a respondent who has survived without committing themselves to an answer - interesting though this is. Terminating an interview early and then repeating it later if necessary would make a far more telling point than endless minutes of argumentative noise without content.