Jon Snow: My big interview at the House of Commons

It’s not the first time I’ve blogged about Jon Snow - see October 14th - but I never thought I’d be typing away about interviewing him. These opportunities jump out at you from nowhere and you’ve got to make the most of them.

I was told I could have as long as I needed with Jon so in the days leading up to the interview I researched high and low about his life and why as a trustee, he devotes his time to the human rights development charity International Service. Sat next to the Thames on the paved area of the House of Commons, I was approaching the end of an interview with Catalina Devandas, a specialist in disabled rights (see photo below) when I noticed in the corner of my eye the tall, silver haired Jon Snow had arrived. Once we’d filmed the reverse shots of my interview with Catalina, I confidently introduced myself and asked him to follow me to a quieter area to conduct the interview.

As any good interviewer should with a liberal amount of time to question, I veered away from my eleven written questions where it felt appropriate to explore his answers. When asked how human rights news stories should be presented, he was adamant that there was no need to be balanced since it’s so broadly agreed that basic human rights are fundamental to everyone. Whilst arguing that there are too few human rights stories covered in the news, he acknowledged that with the decline in European and American news organisations' foreign bureaus, there will be even fewer human rights stories covered.

At the end of the interview, I said that classic line with confidence, ‘Jon Snow, thank you very much’ with a shake of the hand. It was over and I was delighted about the way the interview had gone. The one mistake was that I was so focused on conducting the interview that I forgot to get a photo with him!

However far I do or don’t get in the world of journalism, I will always relish the opportunity to interview a man so well regarded both professionally as the newsreader of Channel 4 News and personally, for the amount of work he does for charities like International Service. It was a great pleasure and another name to add to the list of people I’ve interviewed. I’m looking forward to the next big interview, wherever it appears from. Read below how I got this opportunity and who else I interviewed at the Commons…

Out and About Interviewing in London

A couple of hours after receiving the email inviting trainee journalists to apply to work as a journalist interview at the International Service’s Human Rights Awards I had rang the lady in charge and submitted my application. The opportunity to interview the award winners and the host, Jon Snow, at the House of Commons excited me so much because of my background. I wanted my application to reflect honestly my experience as an interviewer, passion for human rights and natural inquisitive nature. Fortunately they chose me and after a huge amount of reading up on the charity, the award winners and Jon Snow, I headed across to London. International Service wanted to have material to be able to make a film reflecting the work they do supporting charities in West Africa, Latin America and the Middle East and the importance of International Service’s Human Rights Awards.

On Tuesday, the day before the awards ceremony at the Commons, I interviewed Nabilaye, a Malian development worker. I stood on the banks of the River Thames interviewing Nabilaye, whose charity (ADAC) won the award for the Defence of the Human Rights of People Living with HIV/Aids. He only spoke French and with the help of a translator (who also happened to be the CEO of International Service) and a professional cameraman, he gave a moving interview about the charity he runs in Mali which supports sufferers of aids and HIV there. At the awards ceremony the next day, I interviewed all the other award winners including a reporter and producer from the Channel 4 series ‘Unreported World’ as they had won the award for Global Human Rights Defender. This was quite a daunting task because, as with Jon Snow, they know a thing or two about how to interview!

On Tuesday evening I attended the pre-awards drinks party with the winners and the main sponsor of the awards, none other than the Chairperson of Northern Rock, Bryan Sanderson. Once he realised I was a trainee journalist he became a little cold saying he’s got tens of journalists on his back the whole time to find out the latest. I should just say that he was brought in six weeks ago to sort out the crisis. The next day it was the awards ceremony and the big interview with Jon Snow.

Why Jon Snow is right

A warm welcome to my new blog.

This morning the broadcast group watched a programme where four of the top British broadcasters were interviewed by Tony Benn. John Humphreys, Jon Snow, Nick Robinson and Jeremy Paxman were featured and a number of interesting issues were raised.

A news presenter's job is to 'hold up a mirror to reality', according to Jon Snow.

He went on to say that the current state of political apathy was caused by 'a firewall of PR in politics' where politicians' actions are led by their PR people. Quite a statement to make.

I think if politicians were brave enough to tell the truth (not the half truth) then engagement with voters, or more to the point non-voters, would improve. Let me give you an example, I think if Gordon Brown had acknowledged that the reason for not calling an election was that the polls weren't sufficiently in his favour, then he may well have come out of what The Sun called the 'brown stuff' smelling more rose-like! You can tell when people aren't talking straight and the interview he did with Andrew Marr was painful to watch because you knew Brown was trying to hide behind the idea that he had a chance to show the country 'his vision for change'.

If this concept of a 'vision for change' was genuine and not PR-led, it's still a poor excuse because an election is surely the ideal place to do so.

So in conclusion, I concur with Jon Snow.

Please feel free to comment.