Likeability and credibility are key attributes for a successful interviewee.
For a masterclass in how to destroy both in 30 seconds, look no further than Paul McMullan,Deputy Features Editor of the News of the World 1994-2001, on Friday night's Newsnight (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUjrIn6OzJA).
Debating with Greg Dyke and comedian Steve Coogan who's phone had been hacked, McMullan's answer to the first question was a corker "... what better source of getting the truth is there than to listen to someone's messages". Not just totally out of keeping with the nation's moral compass but what has he missed in this story that he thinks the audience will be sympathetic to that as an opening gambit?
McMullan then went on to break another cardinal rule of interviewees, of unnecessarily introducing a negative about yourself that will stick in the audience's minds by going on to volunteer that "several celebrities have called us evil and scum" at which point he was interrupted by Greg Dyke with the pertinent question "What right do have you to listen to their messages?". None. Which is Why News International is paying out huge compensation.
Steve Coogan then stated that McMullan was "a walking PR disaster for the tabloids because you don't come across in a sympathetic way". Spot on.
And with McMullan sitting there in a crumpled suit with papers stuffed in his jacket's left pocket and a tie half way round his navel, he had made himself into a caricature of what the public believe tabloid journalists to be like. And they didn't like it.
Andrew Caesar-Gordon
