Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, trailblazing television journalist who commissioned the Cambridge Analytica investigation, Leaving Neverland, and
On the island
Eight records
I love this because it's beautiful and absolutely hilarious. You can't listen to this without bursting out laughing.
I find when the world is wild and you feel that you're jangling, you should listen to wild and jangling music and the best one that I recommend is Perubu Non-Alignment Pat.
I Know That My Redeemer LivethFavourite
I love the music, I know that my Redeemer liveth, because I think it's about the spirit of hope that is within human beings.
Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense
It's actually about colonialism and corruption in Africa, but really it's just great music to dance to.
There is no better self-pitying piece of music that I've ever heard than this.
When I heard the music of World in Action, I felt that I was tingling all over.
Leonard Piercy and Mary Thomas
There was for a long period just one piece of music which would keep her quiet. I hated it, but it would definitely remind me of her.
The People United Will Never Be Defeated
The first time I heard this piece of music I cried in a concert hall, and you're not even meant to breathe in a British concert hall. … Why it is so moving is that at the beginning you can hear that the people are walking forward in glory and then the music tells you that everything goes wrong and you feel that everything is destroyed. But then at the end the theme begins again and you realise that the people united will never be defeated and that's what makes you cry.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:58Are we better informed as a result of these changes [in news media]?
I think there's a role for all sorts of news. Journalists have a tendency to share the same agenda and that agenda can be really very narrow. We have a strand, for example, Unreported World, which literally does what it says on the tin. … And we need to do a better job. Brexit has shown us that the different parts of society and of our country don't understand each other well enough, and that's a task where we as journalists have to improve.
Presenter asks
6:11You called Boris Johnson a liar. Were you surprised by the reaction?
My job is to speak truth to power, and my concern about politicians not telling the truth is not some eccentric view of my own. … It was really depressing when we surveyed 2,000 voters in the election campaign, and only 10% said that they believed that candidates were generally telling the truth. … So if we want to preserve democracy, we have got to get people to trust the politicians.
Presenter asks
9:15Was it quite a religious household [growing up]?
Yes, it was religious and I was very religious when I was a small child, yes. When I was nearly nine we moved to England, and our whole family life was quite unhappy at the time. … The only way I could think of dying … was to starve myself to death, but nobody noticed and also I kept getting hungry, so I did get thin, but I didn't starve to death, but I was so unhappy.
The keepsakes
The book
I never really studied Physics at school, and I think if you're going to be on a desert island, it would be a good use of your time to find out all the secrets of the universe.
The luxury
If I can't sleep. I find that if I put on Melvin Bragg, particularly talking about papal infallibility. His voice has got a certain sound to it and then I I I I float away.
Presenter asks
10:18What's the legacy of that [childhood unhappiness]?
I am now a happy person, because I realized that I had borrowed the unhappiness of the people around me, but sometimes when I am watching television and I see a little girl talking about maybe having anorexia or bulimia or feeling really unhappy. … It makes me want to reach into the television and say to that girl. It can get better. You think you can't become happy again. But you can be happy. It's possible to be happy.
Presenter asks
12:42You won the English-speaking Union National Schools Debating Competition. Tell me about that [training].
The Nuns they didn't think they had themselves the wherewithal to teach me. So a man was brought from the Christian Brothers School up the road. … he told me to stand on the table … and he gave me a subject to start speaking about. And as soon as I started speaking about it, he started shouting and swearing at me … And I at once stopped, and he said, You don't stop, you don't stop. It doesn't matter what anybody says to you, you have to keep going. … Over the years sometimes horrible men have sworn at me and called me dreadful sexist names, and I've said to them, I'm sorry. It has no effect. I'm trained. It doesn't matter what you say, I will just carry on talking.
Presenter asks
25:05You spoke about sexism and harassment [in your McTaggart lecture]. What sorts of things were going on?
Some men of power regularly assaulted women, and everybody knew it, and knew who they were. … there was a level of sexism and sexual assault that was accepted. … I think what a group of us as women across current affairs TV programmes at that time did was change the definition of what was regarded as a suitable subject for current affairs. When I was promoted to being a producer director, I said that the first film I wanted to do was about rape and marriage, which was then not a crime. … And now subjects like domestic violence against men and women … are accepted as being at the heart of what current affairs should be.
“The only way I could think of dying because there was no internet then, thank God, was to starve myself to death, but nobody noticed and also I kept getting hungry, so I did get thin, but I didn't starve to death, but I was so unhappy.”
“In that moment, the terrible feeling that I used to have, the pain of it, was like this terrible pressure inside me as she talks about it, I suddenly feel it again. It makes me want to reach into the television and say to that girl. It can get better. You think you can't become happy again. But you can be happy. It's possible to be happy.”
“I'm sorry. It has no effect. I'm trained. It doesn't matter what you say, I will just carry on talking. However, that has its downsides as well. Sometimes I should stop talking.”
“Definitely one of the lowest points of my life.”
“The first time I heard this piece of music I cried in a concert hall, and you're not even meant to breathe in a British concert hall. So that was quite embarrassing.”