1 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:10,560 Hello and welcome to the UK column viewers and listeners. 2 00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:14,240 A beautiful day here in Plymouth, really lovely. 3 00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:17,960 And you can see from my backdrop that it's looking good. 4 00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:21,120 We've got lots of blue sky, a bit of clouds, but it is really 5 00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:24,720 a lovely day and of course that's always a boost. 6 00:00:25,520 --> 00:00:29,800 Now each guest I have is always special, but I have a lady 7 00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:34,280 today, Eugenie Vernie, who I have known for some time. 8 00:00:34,280 --> 00:00:38,560 We've had some interesting conversations because she's had 9 00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:43,560 an extensive career as a journalist and I'm really, 10 00:00:43,560 --> 00:00:48,840 really pleased that today she's agreed to join me to talk about 11 00:00:49,280 --> 00:00:53,120 her professional life and also how she sees things, sees things 12 00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:57,520 in the press and media world. Eugenie, thank you very much for 13 00:00:57,520 --> 00:01:01,400 agreeing to come on with me on the UK column. 14 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:04,920 Totally my pleasure Brian. Nice to be here. 15 00:01:05,840 --> 00:01:09,840 OK, lovely backdrop you have there Eugenie. 16 00:01:09,840 --> 00:01:14,160 Absolutely fascinating books and and the mirror in the background 17 00:01:14,160 --> 00:01:17,080 works really well. I think I can see a little bit 18 00:01:17,080 --> 00:01:20,480 of sunshine coming through your window now you're north of the 19 00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:23,840 border and if you're happy to say where you are, that's great. 20 00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:26,680 If not, but it it looks as though you've also got a nice 21 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:27,920 day up there. Is that right? 22 00:01:29,240 --> 00:01:32,120 No, that's that's a trick of the mirror I suspect. 23 00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:38,280 No, we have what I refer to as grey Dome here with light 24 00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:45,760 drizzle and it is currently 16° so a bit different from down 25 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:46,040 South. Oh. 26 00:01:46,760 --> 00:01:48,800 Dear All right, Well, I'm really sorry about that. 27 00:01:48,840 --> 00:01:55,160 I, I tried some, somebody sent us a little card about a week 28 00:01:55,160 --> 00:02:00,280 ago, I think, and, and it shows a poor cartoon individual 29 00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:05,920 standing under quite a downpour and lots of grain, great clouds. 30 00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:10,479 And the caption is, has, has every, has anybody tried turning 31 00:02:10,479 --> 00:02:15,080 the weather off and on again to see whether it sorts the problem 32 00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:16,600 out? And I thought that was quite a 33 00:02:16,600 --> 00:02:19,880 good cartoon. Anyway, there, there we go. 34 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:24,560 Eugenie, I'm going to say again, thank, thank you for agreeing to 35 00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:29,000 this because we've had lots of interesting conversations and 36 00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:33,560 I've prompted quite hard for you to excuse me, come and join me. 37 00:02:33,560 --> 00:02:38,440 Because when, when we've had discussions on what's happening, 38 00:02:38,440 --> 00:02:40,720 you've always been going back into your career. 39 00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:44,560 And I think it would just be so fantastic for the UK column 40 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:49,000 audience to hear a little bit about what a journalistic career 41 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:53,720 is and all the things you've experienced before before I just 42 00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:55,760 give you a prompt to get starting on that. 43 00:02:57,160 --> 00:03:00,840 Wary of discussing ages and things, but I did notice that 44 00:03:00,840 --> 00:03:04,440 your start year is exactly the same as my start year. 45 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:09,360 Am I allowed to to mention that that year on on camera? 46 00:03:09,560 --> 00:03:12,000 Is that OK? That's absolutely fine. 47 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:13,920 Yeah. I mean, we are, we are absolute 48 00:03:13,920 --> 00:03:15,880 contemporaries. I think I'm a wee bit older than 49 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:18,520 you, but I think we are we are the same vintage. 50 00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:20,680 Well, we're just sticking the year. 51 00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:24,840 The year is 1954. So you were born in 1954, as was 52 00:03:24,840 --> 00:03:28,320 I What a great year that was. The world was obviously 53 00:03:28,320 --> 00:03:30,640 dramatically improved from that day on. 54 00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:39,120 OK, OK, now you, you were coined enough to send through ACV, 55 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:43,360 which I I've read and I've found absolutely fascinating. 56 00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:48,440 Just to pull out a few bits is that you come from a from a left 57 00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:52,360 wing background and you describe yourself as being hard left 58 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:58,040 wired, but in certainly in the present day, you're marooned 59 00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:01,760 politically. Just tell us a bit about how, 60 00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:07,080 how it was that you, you not only went through school, but 61 00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:10,920 you came into your journalistic career with, with such a, a 62 00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:16,399 strong lean to the left. So much depends on the family 63 00:04:16,399 --> 00:04:18,880 that you're born into and you, you can't choose that. 64 00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:26,840 And I, I was born into a family. I'm I'm an only child, but with 65 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:33,560 parents who had come through the 30s and the 40s very much to the 66 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:36,480 left of politics. They'd both been members of the 67 00:04:36,760 --> 00:04:39,880 Communist Party of Great Britain, at some point, members 68 00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:42,880 of the Labor Party. My father was a walking 69 00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:45,080 encyclopaedia on the Spanish Civil War. 70 00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:48,040 I mean, when he died, I had to sort through about 50 books on 71 00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:51,320 the topic. He knew a lot about the politics 72 00:04:51,320 --> 00:04:54,600 from the 30s and 40s and that's what shaped their world view. 73 00:04:55,120 --> 00:04:57,960 And so I was born into that. And so you kind of really don't 74 00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:02,960 know much different until you, until you get you, you, you 75 00:05:02,960 --> 00:05:06,360 start exploring a bit more. But I continue down that route 76 00:05:06,360 --> 00:05:11,360 and I, and I, I kind of feel that and I still do feel that I 77 00:05:11,600 --> 00:05:17,680 time, I, I'm on the side of the underdog, but my whole view of 78 00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:22,680 what an underdog and an overdog, if you like, looks like has 79 00:05:22,680 --> 00:05:25,960 changed. But I took that through into my 80 00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:30,840 work and I dropped out of school and I joined the Labour weekly 81 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:34,880 Tribune for a year. The deal was with my mother that 82 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:39,240 if I, if I dropped out of school, which she was not happy 83 00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:45,640 about obviously, and worked at Tribune for a year, then if I 84 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:49,280 after that I went to secretarial college, then we had to deal. 85 00:05:50,040 --> 00:05:54,280 So that's what I did. I dropped out of school halfway 86 00:05:54,280 --> 00:05:56,800 through my A levels because clearly there was nothing more 87 00:05:56,800 --> 00:05:59,400 to learn. I knew everything, so why stay 88 00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:01,720 at school? I had a brilliant year at 89 00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:05,280 Tribune and learnt tonnes about how journalism works and about 90 00:06:05,280 --> 00:06:11,080 how production works and then went to Secretary of college 91 00:06:11,400 --> 00:06:14,200 which lasted for literally 2 days. 92 00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:17,560 Two days sadly, because I realised that that was not going 93 00:06:17,560 --> 00:06:21,680 to work, kind of. I kind of regret not getting the 94 00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:25,480 shorthand, but hey. Eugenia, you started off off 95 00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:30,280 there in in the days of literally lots of paper moving 96 00:06:30,280 --> 00:06:35,160 and spinning and you're in the days of proper printing 97 00:06:35,160 --> 00:06:38,040 processes. Just set the scene a little bit 98 00:06:38,040 --> 00:06:45,800 about what was it like to to be inside a building in with people 99 00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:51,040 involved with the press. You're in typewriter day, 100 00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:54,680 telephone day. I can imagine a lot of people 101 00:06:54,680 --> 00:06:59,040 smoking as they worked. This was real old school 102 00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:02,440 journalism. Just tell us a bit about what 103 00:07:02,440 --> 00:07:05,440 you remember about the environment and what it was like 104 00:07:05,440 --> 00:07:09,120 and and the people. Yeah, parking to your weekly 105 00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:12,960 paper and obviously a bit different and there was less 106 00:07:12,960 --> 00:07:17,920 urgency about it. Working on daily newspapers back 107 00:07:17,920 --> 00:07:23,600 in the 70s and the 80s was just just an amazing experience 108 00:07:23,600 --> 00:07:27,120 because there was a really huge vibe about it all. 109 00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:29,840 There were a lot of people, obviously lots of paper because 110 00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:33,520 everything was paper, Telephones ringing all the time, people 111 00:07:33,520 --> 00:07:37,720 answering phones. And as the night wore on on a 112 00:07:37,720 --> 00:07:41,560 daily paper and you were getting nearer deadline, the whole 113 00:07:41,560 --> 00:07:44,240 momentum speeded up and up and up and up and up. 114 00:07:44,840 --> 00:07:48,880 And then when you were what was called off stone, which is also 115 00:07:48,880 --> 00:07:51,840 to do with hot metal, because it was still hot metal in those 116 00:07:51,840 --> 00:07:55,880 days, you could say I've gone from hot metal to AI if you 117 00:07:55,880 --> 00:07:57,840 like. That's, that's my, that's my 118 00:07:57,840 --> 00:08:01,800 career. The whole vibe would change 119 00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:04,760 again because then you would hear the printing presses start 120 00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:08,880 to start up and then you. Yeah, and the whole building 121 00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:12,160 would move. Particularly notice that further 122 00:08:12,160 --> 00:08:15,800 on at the Morningstar, I could notice that Guardian slightly 123 00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:19,960 less natural career at the Daily Express in Manchester. 124 00:08:20,320 --> 00:08:25,400 The whole building moving when the presses started up was 125 00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:29,200 really tangible and you kind of felt that you were part of 126 00:08:30,440 --> 00:08:34,840 something that was important. And I have no, because I haven't 127 00:08:34,840 --> 00:08:37,919 actually worked in a newsroom for quite a while now. 128 00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:43,280 I don't know whether that still applies, but I somehow suspect 129 00:08:43,280 --> 00:08:48,880 that that particular vibe and urgency and sense of, I was 130 00:08:48,880 --> 00:08:52,640 going to say carpus, but let's let's not go there, but sort of 131 00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:56,160 a joint endeavour, I suspect that may have gone. 132 00:08:56,760 --> 00:09:00,840 A real feeling of teamwork you're in in that environment. 133 00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:04,640 And what came into my head, you're talking about those 134 00:09:04,640 --> 00:09:07,520 printing presses firing up and the machinery. 135 00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:11,880 And then the thing begins to go. It's a bit like firing up a ship 136 00:09:11,880 --> 00:09:14,320 to go to sea. And the moment you feel that 137 00:09:14,800 --> 00:09:18,440 vibration through the vessel, the whole thing literally does 138 00:09:18,440 --> 00:09:20,840 come alive. And, and, and you know, you're a 139 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:25,840 team of people, Eugenia, that that time, well, actually 140 00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:29,560 through its career, I think the Morning Star, the Tribune and 141 00:09:29,560 --> 00:09:32,640 the Morning Star, although they've been small niche 142 00:09:33,640 --> 00:09:37,120 publications, have actually done some pretty good journal 143 00:09:37,400 --> 00:09:40,640 journalism in their day. And they've certainly been 144 00:09:40,640 --> 00:09:47,120 fearless in going into areas that the Porsche papers wouldn't 145 00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:51,120 get involved in. Can do you have any particular 146 00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:54,520 stories back from those days that you can remember and you 147 00:09:54,520 --> 00:09:57,880 think, gosh, we did a good job or was that, is that a bit too 148 00:09:57,880 --> 00:10:03,200 far in the in the distant past? I think that probably is to try 149 00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:06,760 and pull out anything in particular, but that is 150 00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:12,800 absolutely the case that both Tribune and the Morning Star, 151 00:10:13,080 --> 00:10:19,960 the quality of journalism was exceedingly high as it was on, 152 00:10:20,040 --> 00:10:24,880 on, you know, when I went later I moved to the Guardian and, and 153 00:10:24,880 --> 00:10:27,400 on the Daily Express, I mean the Guardian over here, the Daily 154 00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:32,400 Express over there. But I think what what United 155 00:10:33,720 --> 00:10:37,600 Newspapers, whether indeed the Morning Star, the Daily Express, 156 00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:43,520 the Guardian in the 70s and 80s was just the quality of the 157 00:10:43,520 --> 00:10:46,880 journalism. You would start with the same 158 00:10:46,880 --> 00:10:50,800 ingredients and of course all proprietors would spin later. 159 00:10:50,800 --> 00:10:53,240 All had their agendas. And as journalists you were 160 00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:55,720 completely aware of who your proprietor was and what their 161 00:10:55,720 --> 00:10:59,880 spin was. But what I sense has changed 162 00:10:59,880 --> 00:11:05,480 from the quality of what's being sort of churned out now is that 163 00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:11,080 there's no discernment, there's no desire to find what we could 164 00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:13,640 loosely label the truth, although truth is one of those 165 00:11:13,640 --> 00:11:16,840 words that is very, very difficult to actually define 166 00:11:17,240 --> 00:11:20,240 because everybody's truth looks very slightly different. 167 00:11:20,760 --> 00:11:22,880 You can pick up the facts and you can move from about. 168 00:11:23,280 --> 00:11:29,080 But I think if I give you, if you, if I give you an example of 169 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:36,360 of the process that took place together to get a story into a 170 00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:41,800 paper back then compared to what's happening now, I think 171 00:11:41,800 --> 00:11:43,760 that that probably gives you some context. 172 00:11:43,760 --> 00:11:45,840 Would you like me to do that? Absolutely. 173 00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:49,040 I was going to try and prompt you to head in that direction. 174 00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:51,200 You've got onto it now. Let's go for it. 175 00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:53,800 This is this is really what we want to know. 176 00:11:53,800 --> 00:11:57,800 What what was it like then And and what was good, what was bad 177 00:11:57,800 --> 00:12:00,320 and how do you see it now? This is yeah. 178 00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:04,200 Great area. OK, so, so the process, and this 179 00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:09,240 was the same process that give or take with with, you know, 180 00:12:09,320 --> 00:12:12,760 nuances and adjustments, that was that that applied to the 181 00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:15,760 Morning Star. Not so much at Tribune because I 182 00:12:15,760 --> 00:12:18,400 said that was a weekly, but let's look at the Morning Star, 183 00:12:18,880 --> 00:12:22,360 look at the Guardian and then later I joined the Daily Express 184 00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:26,640 in Manchester. So you've got three very 185 00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:29,800 different publications. The thing that really united 186 00:12:29,800 --> 00:12:35,320 them was how the the news would actually end up in the paper and 187 00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:37,960 parking the spin. OK, it's just the process. 188 00:12:38,520 --> 00:12:42,200 So you have a story. Now this can either originate 189 00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:46,680 from the news desk or it can originate from the reporter. 190 00:12:47,400 --> 00:12:52,600 Either way, you have a story, and the story would be written 191 00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:56,360 by the reporter, researched. They would go out of the office, 192 00:12:56,880 --> 00:12:58,160 which hardly ever happens anymore. 193 00:12:58,520 --> 00:13:01,320 They would go out of the office, they would meet people, they 194 00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:04,200 would put the story together. They would write the story. 195 00:13:04,640 --> 00:13:09,520 They would then file the story with a typewriter and hand it 196 00:13:09,520 --> 00:13:13,600 across to the news desk. The news editor would then look 197 00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:17,440 at it, look at it against the brief they'd been given, see 198 00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:20,120 whether it covered everything, if there were gaps, go back to 199 00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:22,640 the reporter and say, well, you've missed this, this, this 200 00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:25,080 and this, and can you stand that quote up? 201 00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:26,560 Because I don't think you've stood that up. 202 00:13:26,800 --> 00:13:29,040 Where's that come from? Where did you get this from? 203 00:13:29,440 --> 00:13:31,800 Make it stand up. It it needs a bit more 204 00:13:31,800 --> 00:13:34,320 substance. Reporter might have to have 205 00:13:34,320 --> 00:13:37,960 another shot at it. And then the story would go back 206 00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:40,120 to the news desk. And when the news desk was happy 207 00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:42,920 with it, they would pass it across to the production team, 208 00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:45,800 which is where I came in because I worked as a production 209 00:13:45,800 --> 00:13:49,680 journalist on all these titles. I did a bit of writing as well, 210 00:13:49,680 --> 00:13:51,080 but that was mainly features writing. 211 00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:53,480 We're talking about hard news production now. 212 00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:58,320 So it would go across to a journalist known as the copy 213 00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:00,680 taster. And this is exactly what the 214 00:14:00,680 --> 00:14:02,920 copy Taster would do. And I've had my share of that. 215 00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:08,320 So you look at the story and you would assess whether it how 216 00:14:08,320 --> 00:14:11,600 newsworthy you thought it was in terms of the space you got and 217 00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:15,080 so on and so forth. And you cross it off your list. 218 00:14:15,080 --> 00:14:16,320 Basically, you were expecting it. 219 00:14:16,320 --> 00:14:20,120 You would then hand it across to the chief sub editor. 220 00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:22,560 There will be other people as well, but let's simplify it. 221 00:14:22,560 --> 00:14:26,400 Chief sub editor would take it and say, right, that's going to 222 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:31,680 be a page lead. So the main story on an inside 223 00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:33,960 page, not on the front page, but on the inside page. 224 00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:39,000 So they would then decide what style it had, how long it had to 225 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:42,640 be, etcetera. At that point it would be put 226 00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:47,760 out to down what known as down table sub editors, which is 227 00:14:47,760 --> 00:14:50,800 where obviously I started out as a down table sub editor. 228 00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:55,400 And it is with some pride that I can say that I was the youngest 229 00:14:55,400 --> 00:14:58,560 female journalist on the Guardian when I got that job. 230 00:14:59,520 --> 00:15:01,520 Very happy with that. It was good. 231 00:15:01,520 --> 00:15:03,360 Well done. Yes, it was good. 232 00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:08,440 And so you then get the story and, you know, depending on the 233 00:15:08,440 --> 00:15:11,840 time of day, you have more or less time to turn the thing 234 00:15:11,840 --> 00:15:13,840 around. You know, if it's the start of 235 00:15:13,840 --> 00:15:17,400 your shift, which would usually be early to mid afternoon, you 236 00:15:17,400 --> 00:15:19,840 had plenty of time to play around with it, Polish it. 237 00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:22,040 Often it involved rewriting things. 238 00:15:22,040 --> 00:15:24,720 Often it involved going back to the the reporter. 239 00:15:25,880 --> 00:15:28,360 It usually goes direct to the reporter. 240 00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:33,400 And you know, among the people whose copy I, I edited were the 241 00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:38,960 likes of the woman who defines grumpiness, Melanie Phillips, 242 00:15:39,480 --> 00:15:43,400 and also Alan Rusbridger, who went on to become the editor of 243 00:15:43,400 --> 00:15:44,960 the Guardian. But I was there in Peter 244 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:50,320 Preston's days, very different. Anyway, so you, you go through 245 00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:53,080 this piece of copy. This is, remember, there's no 246 00:15:53,080 --> 00:15:56,800 computer screens, nothing, nothing, none of that, just bits 247 00:15:56,800 --> 00:15:58,960 of paper. You then have to cut it to 248 00:15:58,960 --> 00:16:01,080 length. So you have to actually do word 249 00:16:01,080 --> 00:16:03,000 counts on it. There are ninja ways of doing 250 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:05,480 that. So you have to maybe cut 10 251 00:16:05,480 --> 00:16:09,000 centimetres out of it, but keep, keep the sense, keep all the 252 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:11,920 best bits and so on. You do all that, write your 253 00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:15,680 headline, etcetera. And then you'd hand it over to a 254 00:16:15,680 --> 00:16:20,080 very, very important person who as far as I'm aware, has long, 255 00:16:20,080 --> 00:16:23,280 long, long since gone. This was the revised sub editor 256 00:16:23,560 --> 00:16:25,720 and this was the province of Grumpy Old men. 257 00:16:25,720 --> 00:16:31,000 Wherever I wrote Grumpy Old Men and they would, their job was to 258 00:16:31,840 --> 00:16:37,040 basically do a quality check on what the sub editor had done to 259 00:16:37,040 --> 00:16:40,720 make sure that the job had been done properly and to pick up on 260 00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:43,000 anything that had fallen through the net. 261 00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:48,320 Most of the time you were fine. But if you cocked up then you 262 00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:52,480 would be called across and and say come here. 263 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:54,440 The one on the Guardian, his name is Morris. 264 00:16:54,440 --> 00:16:56,880 And he had a pipe because yeah, everybody smoked in those days. 265 00:16:57,280 --> 00:16:59,120 So have fun of his pipe. Come over here. 266 00:16:59,440 --> 00:17:04,079 And it's oh God, now what? So did you mean that? 267 00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:07,599 No, I didn't mean that. It's and there we go. 268 00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:11,760 Finally, finally, after he'd had to go at it, it would then get 269 00:17:11,760 --> 00:17:15,119 into the system and it would be set in hot metal, which is a 270 00:17:15,119 --> 00:17:20,359 whole different story. And and then it had may have to 271 00:17:20,359 --> 00:17:22,440 be cut again. And that would be the job of the 272 00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:24,839 stone sub editor. And that was a really 273 00:17:24,839 --> 00:17:29,400 interesting experience as a woman on a very, very, very male 274 00:17:29,400 --> 00:17:33,120 dominated, very misogynist environment. 275 00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:35,880 But it has its moments as well. It was good fun as well. 276 00:17:36,880 --> 00:17:40,160 So you, you that would be real pressured, but very, very 277 00:17:40,160 --> 00:17:42,080 different from what happens now, obviously. 278 00:17:43,520 --> 00:17:47,480 But at that point you'd get what's known as galley proofs. 279 00:17:47,480 --> 00:17:52,040 So the, the story would just be in a long piece of news printed 280 00:17:52,040 --> 00:17:56,200 on a long piece of new Sprint. And at that point it would go to 281 00:17:56,320 --> 00:17:59,960 the lawyer. Yes, lawyers looked at stuff in 282 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:03,040 those days and particularly anything. 283 00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:04,920 They would crawl all over stories that were going to be 284 00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:07,360 controversial, but they would look at everything. 285 00:18:08,080 --> 00:18:12,880 And so from the reporter to it actually appearing in the paper, 286 00:18:13,120 --> 00:18:18,120 you had all these quality control mechanisms going on. 287 00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:21,720 That's gone. And you can see it in what's 288 00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:24,760 what's in what gets published. You can see what happens now. 289 00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:27,920 There is no quality control. Whoever is putting the story 290 00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:32,760 together, and for a lot of a lot of stories that's now press 291 00:18:32,760 --> 00:18:36,040 releases which are barely changed, it just goes from or 292 00:18:36,040 --> 00:18:40,240 loosely call it the reporter straight on onto onto your 293 00:18:40,240 --> 00:18:41,840 screen. Eugenie. 294 00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:45,520 Into your paper. Eugenie It makes that move very 295 00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:50,280 often with with typos and really crass mistakes and all all the 296 00:18:50,280 --> 00:18:53,720 papers are doing this. I mean, UK column team, 297 00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:58,400 obviously for a long time we would have to qualify, classify 298 00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:02,920 ourselves as amateurs. But even, you know, we hated it 299 00:19:02,920 --> 00:19:07,360 when we realised that a, a typo had gone through or you'd spelt 300 00:19:07,360 --> 00:19:11,080 something incorrectly. And if you're just handling your 301 00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:13,160 own work, that can be very easy to do. 302 00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:17,360 But I've over the last, certainly over the last five 303 00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:20,920 years, there seems to me to have been a dramatic increase in the 304 00:19:20,920 --> 00:19:27,800 in the in blatant mistakes and and incorrect spelling, typos, 305 00:19:29,240 --> 00:19:32,120 sometimes blocks of text have been left in. 306 00:19:33,880 --> 00:19:37,120 And this is not just, you know, the smaller, cheaper papers. 307 00:19:37,120 --> 00:19:41,280 This is the big boys doing this. And it must indicate that the 308 00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:45,880 overall professional standards have dropped and their own due 309 00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:48,040 diligence inside the papers dropped. 310 00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:51,640 Absolutely. I mean, quite recently there was 311 00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:54,560 a story in the Telegraph which got quite a lot of coverage 312 00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:58,880 everywhere else, which is about this, this power couple who were 313 00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:02,920 complaining that they that because VOT had been bunked onto 314 00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:07,800 private, private school fees that they could no longer afford 315 00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:11,560 5 holidays a year. And it was accompanied by stock 316 00:20:11,560 --> 00:20:14,560 photos it emerged. But then it emerged that the 317 00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:20,440 entire story was fabricated. I'm probably generated by AII, 318 00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:23,560 don't know whether that's actually been nailed or not, but 319 00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:24,920 the whole thing was a complete lie. 320 00:20:24,920 --> 00:20:28,480 This is the Daily Telegraph, which not. 321 00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:32,560 It's never been one of my favourite publications, but you 322 00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:35,640 know, it used to have a reputation for being reasonably 323 00:20:35,640 --> 00:20:39,360 good newspaper of record. But this was a complete lie. 324 00:20:39,360 --> 00:20:42,800 And they had to, and, and they actually said in the, in the 325 00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:46,360 apology that they had to publish, which was in the last, 326 00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:50,280 in the last week or so, they, they said we've now checked the 327 00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:53,520 facts. Well, hello, I've just explained 328 00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:57,480 how facts used to get checked. Do you not do any of that 329 00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:00,920 anymore? So I'm now at the stage where I 330 00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:07,160 actually don't believe anything I read in the mainstream media. 331 00:21:07,600 --> 00:21:13,000 And one of the things that I, I truly respect about UK column 332 00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:18,480 and and and and and and other independent sources of news is 333 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:24,400 that you, you provide your sources, you know, you actually 334 00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:28,000 list them. So, you know, if I'm looking at 335 00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:32,200 something, say what, what that, that, that, I'm not sure about 336 00:21:32,200 --> 00:21:33,720 that. And I'm not sure about the spin 337 00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:38,320 so and so has put on that I can go away and check it. 338 00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:42,560 And you used to be with, you know, newspapers used to 339 00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:45,920 attribute far more than they do now. 340 00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:49,240 It was much harder to find the source material. 341 00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:51,600 Of course, now, because now you can actually find the source 342 00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:55,760 material, ironically, much is much more easily than you could 343 00:21:55,920 --> 00:22:01,680 say 30-40 years ago. But there's a massive mismatch 344 00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:03,720 now. And I honestly think that 345 00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:09,480 mainstream media is spiralling down the plug hole so fast. 346 00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:16,120 And yeah, it and I just, yeah, there's a yes. 347 00:22:16,120 --> 00:22:19,560 Is there some rose tinted glasses stuff going on here a 348 00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:22,560 bit? Because we do tend to philtre 349 00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:24,520 stuff and we pick out the good times. 350 00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:28,200 And yeah, there was, you know, there were things about how the 351 00:22:28,200 --> 00:22:34,040 media worked then, how it worked in the interim that were not 352 00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:36,400 good. You know, you look certainly 353 00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:40,160 look at the history of some of the tabloids, you know, and 354 00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:42,480 looking at it from a woman's perspective, there was a lot of 355 00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:44,720 misogyny. There was a lot of issues around 356 00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:51,000 that. But overall, as you say, you 357 00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,920 just look at this stuff. It's so badly written, it's 358 00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:57,680 sloppy. It's not been checked, and you 359 00:22:57,680 --> 00:22:59,960 can't trust it. So that's where we are. 360 00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:02,560 That's where we are. And then of course we're in a 361 00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:08,160 big pond where we have the media itself complaining and warning 362 00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:11,680 about the dangers of misinformation and 363 00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:14,880 disinformation and how we need accurate truth. 364 00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:20,200 And then we have an army of so called truth checkers, fact 365 00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:24,800 checkers, most of whom seem to be completely self appointed 366 00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:29,760 with qualifications to their own satisfaction and not necessarily 367 00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:33,840 anybody's out also. So the papers go downhill in the 368 00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:37,080 quality of the reports and the accuracy of the reports. 369 00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:41,960 And then those same papers as sort of talking to us, the 370 00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:46,200 general public and warning about the dangers of, of poor 371 00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:50,160 information. It's it's obscene really to see 372 00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:54,640 this this happen. Having made that comment and 373 00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,680 while it while it's in my head just to press on the business of 374 00:23:57,760 --> 00:24:01,160 of the earlier days and reporters going out. 375 00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:05,360 This to me seems to be one of the key things that each paper 376 00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:11,200 down to local fam, excuse me, family owned local papers was 377 00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:16,760 sending a person out, man or woman, a reporter to go and find 378 00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,360 the story. And finding the story meant 379 00:24:19,360 --> 00:24:24,440 actually being able to talk with the individual connected to that 380 00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:28,480 story and then going to talk to other human beings in order to 381 00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:32,840 build the story. It was all absolutely around 382 00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:37,120 interacting with people in order to get the story. 383 00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:41,560 And we we know today that particularly young journalists 384 00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:45,040 who've perhaps just come in from university and they've got their 385 00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:47,480 basic journalistic qualifications. 386 00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:52,880 They are sitting in a room and they're tasked with producing so 387 00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:58,840 many stories a day and they only source information for the story 388 00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:02,200 from the Internet itself. That's that's what I have been 389 00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:05,280 led to believe and you can correct me if if I'm wrong on 390 00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:07,880 that. No, that, that, that is exactly 391 00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:11,920 how it would appear to be working in, I'm not going to say 392 00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:14,480 every single case because obviously there are still 393 00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:19,600 examples of, of journalists who who do dig and delve and do find 394 00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,640 good stories. But the whole cost cutting, cost 395 00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:27,720 cutting, cost cutting and, and moving away from print, which is 396 00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:32,840 inevitable, sadly. Although interestingly, what is 397 00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:37,680 interesting is that there has been a big upsurge in sales of 398 00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:41,600 what I would call specialist print magazines, You know, 399 00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:44,720 hobby, hobbies and special interests. 400 00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:48,160 That whole area of print journalism continues to thrive. 401 00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:53,560 But in terms of news, it's quite clear that nobody gets their 402 00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:58,400 core news from newspapers anymore, whether that's local or 403 00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:02,720 national. And yeah, I mean, what, what? 404 00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:08,040 And, and, and the whole, the whole the COVID recorded that 405 00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:14,400 the COVID, I think put further nails in various coffins, one of 406 00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:19,320 which being newspaper proprietors say, whoa, all these 407 00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:22,520 dudes are working at home. We can get rid of our offices 408 00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:24,200 now. We can have them all sitting at 409 00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,720 home. So not only do you have 410 00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:31,920 journalists not going out unless they're freelancers and and 411 00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:36,280 trying to find stories, but if they're employed journalists, 412 00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:40,240 you have them sitting at their own laptops because they no 413 00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:42,240 doubt will have provided their own kit now. 414 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:49,440 And as you say, just getting all that information from elsewhere 415 00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:53,720 on the Internet, not going out and meeting anybody, maybe 416 00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:58,840 making a few phone calls. And crucially, which circles 417 00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:01,200 back to, you know, what I was talking about before about the 418 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,360 whole atmosphere of being in a newsroom. 419 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,800 One of the things that was so important was bouncing ideas off 420 00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,080 other people. And if you're just sitting at 421 00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:17,000 home and that's all you're doing and your, your, your output is 422 00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:21,040 virtually measured by the centimetre, you haven't done 423 00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:22,200 enough. You haven't done enough. 424 00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:23,480 Come on. More stories, more. 425 00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:25,360 We need more clicks. We need more click bait. 426 00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,800 You're never going to. Your skills are never going to 427 00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:33,440 grow. Except your skills for actually 428 00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:35,400 turning out crap faster, I guess. 429 00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:38,560 But you're not having any, particularly if you're a local 430 00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:40,920 newspaper, you have nothing to do with the community in which 431 00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:43,520 you're based. And that's even exacerbated 432 00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:48,640 further by big proprietors like Reach, which is an ironic name 433 00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:52,960 for it because they now consolidate their news 434 00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:58,280 operations in hubs which serve enormous geographical areas. 435 00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:02,880 So you'll have reporters, you know, based in city A covering 436 00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:08,880 city B who know, absolutely sold all about City B and yeah, and 437 00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,400 and it's it's and the other, the other crucial. 438 00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:15,600 I just checked this in as well. The absolutely really, really 439 00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,120 important thing when you're looking at in terms of 440 00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,400 maintaining any semblance, semblance of local 441 00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:26,560 accountability and local democracy is the demise of the 442 00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:31,160 local court reporter and the local council reporter. 443 00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:34,840 Gone, gone, gone, gone don't exist. 444 00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:41,360 We have this amazing situation where the BBC, which is such a 445 00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:47,240 huge monopoly, is now putting the so called democracy 446 00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,120 reporters into into local papers. 447 00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:54,600 So when you're dealing with the local paper, you can't even be 448 00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:58,120 sure it is local because if you delve behind it, you can find 449 00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:00,680 the behind the title is the name Breach. 450 00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:06,640 And and then you can have ABBC reporter embedded as the local 451 00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,200 democracy reporter, which now means that the BBC's got its 452 00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:14,840 fingers right into the local community with all of its 453 00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:19,280 processes. So we're seeing, it seems to me, 454 00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:25,480 you know, a massive grouping up a centralisation of, of news in 455 00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:31,080 the country that actually instead of having and your day 456 00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:34,160 when you started out there would have been at the lowest levels 457 00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:39,400 still quite a lot of family owned local papers producing 458 00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:42,520 papers, maybe at a District Council level. 459 00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:46,160 Of course they would cross the sort of administrative borders, 460 00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:52,680 but very local catchment areas. Those family papers were still 461 00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:54,320 there. Then we had a selection of 462 00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:59,120 smaller titles and then we started to go through the grades 463 00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:03,400 up to the big boys, Telegraph, Guardian Telegraph and and 464 00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:04,880 Times. But at least there was a 465 00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,360 spectrum. Now this is all being gathered 466 00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,760 together with fewer and fewer people in control. 467 00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:15,400 This is this has got to be dangerous Is well, isn't it? 468 00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:16,920 I don't know. What do you think? 469 00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:20,160 Yeah, I mean, you know, my, my route into journalism, as you 470 00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:22,320 will have gathered was, was unusual. 471 00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,400 But back in that day, back in the day, the normal routine 472 00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,880 would have been to start out on a local newspaper and you would 473 00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,720 have been doing the council, you know, going to the council 474 00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:35,360 meetings. You would have been doing some 475 00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:38,400 court reportings, which means that you had to have a, a basic 476 00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:42,200 understanding of how magistrates courts or sheriff courts, 477 00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:45,360 etcetera, in, in Scotland, how all that would work. 478 00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:51,480 And you would also be expected to do the really unpleasant end 479 00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:55,840 of of it, which is death knocks going and knocking on the doors 480 00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:58,880 of people who've experienced sudden deaths or, you know, 481 00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,800 tragic deaths and so on. You would learn a lot. 482 00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:06,240 You'd learn a lot about how people respond, how, how, how 483 00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:11,960 to, how to craft questions, how to look out for patterns and 484 00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:14,800 you'd make contacts. So if you were, you know, 485 00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:20,080 certainly I witnessed this because I also worked for the 486 00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,760 pressing general in Aberdeen for some years. 487 00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:29,480 And yeah, I mean, I was, I was, again, I was a production 488 00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:32,040 journalist because that that's just the trajectory in my 489 00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:37,760 personal career took me on. But you know the the guy who did 490 00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:42,800 all the council reporting, who ironically eventually to judge, 491 00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:45,160 jump ship and go and work for Aberdeen City Council. 492 00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:49,280 But at the time that we were both working for that paper, his 493 00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:54,040 knowledge and understanding of how the local councils in 494 00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,960 Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire worked, who the key players 495 00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:03,160 were, where the power lay, crucially where the power lay, 496 00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:06,160 where the decision, real decisions were taken was 497 00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:11,040 absolutely outstanding. And that's all gone that that 498 00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:15,720 the media's ability to say with any degree of confidence that 499 00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:18,280 this is actually what's happening inside your council. 500 00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,320 And I worked at Aberdeen, this is connected. 501 00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:22,960 So I'm going to go off on this little tangent. 502 00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:25,640 I also worked at Aberdeen City Council as a corporate 503 00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:31,960 communications officer and the local evening paper that the was 504 00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:36,200 on our case day in, day in out, day out. 505 00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,880 You know, every single day would start with another call from 506 00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:45,240 from the evening paper asking we've just heard this, we've 507 00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,840 been tipped off about this, is this true? 508 00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:52,800 Can you tell us about this? Because their reporters had 509 00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:57,360 contacts within the council who were telling them about things 510 00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:04,040 that they felt needed exploring. Now, you know at least 50% of 511 00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:06,800 them are wild goose choices and really annoying for us as 512 00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:08,320 corporate communications officers. 513 00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:12,160 But quite often you were doing an awful lot of reputation 514 00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:16,160 management because local journalists had actually 515 00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:20,120 unearthed stuff that the council didn't want you to know about. 516 00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:24,200 Nobody's doing that as far as I can see anymore. 517 00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:28,760 It's certainly being done less. And as, as you're talking 518 00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:32,160 through that, I was thinking back to sort of my earlier days 519 00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:35,280 of challenging Plymouth City councillors to what was 520 00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:37,320 happening with money in the city. 521 00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:42,240 You know, my story is I, I became aware that large amounts 522 00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,320 of money that was coming into the city, principally as 523 00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:50,760 regeneration grant money, much of it from the EU, was being 524 00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,280 misappropriated. And it was never getting to the 525 00:33:53,280 --> 00:34:00,280 project it was designed for. Or it was sort of syphoned off 526 00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:04,720 to support some, some other project or indeed in some cases 527 00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:06,720 what seemed to be personal initiatives. 528 00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:12,040 But at that time, local papers had enough. 529 00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:15,679 They were strong enough, they were robust enough that their 530 00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,800 journalists, investigative reporters, they had 531 00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:22,840 investigative reporters were also asking questions. 532 00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:29,000 And, and so when I was in the midst of this, and it did get 533 00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:33,520 quite heavy at one point, but it was reassuring when you actually 534 00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:37,360 started to see some of the truth coming up to the surface in the 535 00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:40,760 local paper. And then I was to watch as to 536 00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,360 how this was closed down. And we, we won't mention 537 00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:47,199 anybody's names, but one of the journalists who was clearly 538 00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:52,880 doing his job as an investigative journalist was was 539 00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:57,280 taken away from investigative reporting and moved across to 540 00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,800 another specialisation. So I read into that, that 541 00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:04,400 clearly there'd been some underhand dealing bully boy 542 00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:08,160 tactics probably between the local council and the local 543 00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,760 paper. So I, I'm going to say that 544 00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:15,800 when, well, when am I talking? I'm talking probably 2005 up to 545 00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:22,200 2015, that sort of period. I absolutely saw the power of 546 00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:27,400 the local newspapers squashed. How that was being done. 547 00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:31,880 I didn't understand all of it, but it was clear that the local 548 00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:37,320 council seemed to have the power to, you know, stop things being 549 00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,200 published or if they were published, the article was 550 00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:44,360 greatly toned down. And that was then. 551 00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:48,680 And since then we've moved on hugely and we've got these huge 552 00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:53,920 single organisations like Reach controlling the whole of the the 553 00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:58,560 media. Yeah, so this is, this is a sad 554 00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:01,960 loss because it gave us an outlet for the truth, didn't it? 555 00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:05,120 Yes, it did. And I and I, and I think I mean 556 00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:09,480 again, you know, let's take taking my roast tinted glasses 557 00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:14,320 off here. All media organisations have 558 00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:19,840 been, how shall we say is subject to external pressure, 559 00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:23,160 all of them. And of course, you know, we, we 560 00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:27,920 have the official, the official, what can we call it, device of 561 00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:30,440 the D notices which are just slapped on stories that you're 562 00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:32,800 not allowed to touch. That's more at national level, 563 00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:38,240 but certainly at at local level. Yes, there would, there would 564 00:36:38,240 --> 00:36:43,440 be, there always have have been compromises made, stories that 565 00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:47,040 have been pulled. But I think the key thing is 566 00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:49,760 that the stories were written in the 1st place. 567 00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,960 They were researched and written in the 1st place before they 568 00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:56,320 were pulled. What I see very little evidence 569 00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:58,160 of looking at my own local paper. 570 00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:04,160 The local ones where I'm based in Perthshire, I look at them 571 00:37:04,240 --> 00:37:11,280 and I I can't see any evidence of digging below really the top 572 00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:15,440 layer the the, the the top soil. I can't see anybody digging 573 00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:18,200 underneath that. Now, that is also a function of 574 00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:20,680 the fact that there aren't enough bodies, you know, there 575 00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:24,360 isn't the luxury of time to actually go away and investigate 576 00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:26,840 this. But if I cast my mind back again 577 00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:31,720 going up to national level, I think the time that it took to 578 00:37:31,720 --> 00:37:34,400 unpick, you know, for example, I was at the Guardian when the 579 00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:39,160 whole Jeremy Thorpe story blew open with, you know, with with 580 00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:41,600 his his affair, which would nobody would. 581 00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,760 I don't think batten eyelid really too much out now. 582 00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:49,080 But what was his name? Norman, Norman, Norman car, 583 00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:51,520 it'll come to me. But you know that all that was a 584 00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:55,520 lot of a lot of that was guardian research and the whole 585 00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,080 story, you know, blew open and eventually it went to trial. 586 00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,560 But you know, that took them I would say six months to a year 587 00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:10,440 to actually actually, how should we say cement that story and 588 00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:13,200 that I can't see that happening anywhere anymore. 589 00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:18,040 Just doesn't doesn't happen. Eugenia, there is so much to 590 00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:23,680 talk to, sorry talk about. As we're as we're discussing 591 00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:26,760 these things, there's more and more bits popping into my mind. 592 00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:30,680 So I'll do this, this one just because it's a bit of fun. 593 00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:35,320 Is that on the one of the walls here in the UK Com studio we 594 00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:38,920 have a framed letter. And that letter came in from 595 00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,400 Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail. 596 00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:45,520 And the reason we have this very nice letter from him with a, a 597 00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:49,520 lovely wet signature, which is another thing that seems to have 598 00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:56,880 gone, is that back in the day, we're talking about 2010, we 599 00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:00,800 sent him information about the political charity Common 600 00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,320 Purpose. And that of course was a charity 601 00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,880 that we'd been doing considerable investigation into 602 00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:11,280 their activities and warning that there were many areas where 603 00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:15,440 we thought it was up to no good. So the reason we sent this to 604 00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:21,400 Paul Dacre is he was being challenged as things started to 605 00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:24,280 come to a head with the Media Standards Trust. 606 00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:28,800 So this is when suddenly we started to see the idea that the 607 00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:31,920 press wasn't working properly and there needed to be greater 608 00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:37,080 controls on the press and they'd they'd been unethical by 609 00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:41,280 breaking and hacking into people's phones. 610 00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:44,800 So there was a lot of controversy Where that came from 611 00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:48,120 would be quite interesting to discuss, but I'll stick with the 612 00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:52,280 story. So we, we read that Paul Dacre 613 00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:57,000 had been given quite a grilling by these people and we sent him 614 00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:00,880 a little package of information saying, are you aware that 615 00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:04,480 there's a, a connection between many of the people who grilled 616 00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:05,160 you? They're all. 617 00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:08,080 Part of a specialist organisation called Common 618 00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:12,880 Purpose and we of course had done our research and so we sent 619 00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:18,880 in factual documents, documents mainly that we've received as a 620 00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:21,760 result of Freedom of Information requests. 621 00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:26,080 And it all went off. It went quiet for a couple of 622 00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:29,600 weeks and then we received this very short but very polite 623 00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:33,600 letter back thanking us profusely for the information 624 00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:37,720 that we sent. And it was signed by the man 625 00:40:37,720 --> 00:40:42,000 himself with his ink pen. And it was such a nice letter. 626 00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:45,000 It's on the wall. But of course what happened was 627 00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:50,240 everything went quiet for about I think it was about 3 months. 628 00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:53,680 And I thought to myself, well, I sent all that information off 629 00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:56,640 and nothing happened. And then one Saturday morning I 630 00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:00,440 went over to my the local shop and to buy a paper. 631 00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:05,960 And there on the the counter was the Daily Telegraph. 632 00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:10,320 And the front page was a massive headline about common purpose. 633 00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,840 And I had to buy the paper. And when I got it home and was 634 00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:18,000 looking with at it with my cup of coffee, inside was no less 635 00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:22,160 than 10 full pages on common purpose. 636 00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:27,840 And the Daily Mail had really, really got stuck into the 637 00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:31,440 article. I'd never seen 10 pages on one 638 00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:34,880 particular a topic like that from the Mail. 639 00:41:35,240 --> 00:41:39,120 And I was absolutely over the moon because that was clearly 640 00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:43,160 going to do a lot of damage. And just coming to the end of 641 00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:50,440 this later, I, I was able to meet an independent journalist 642 00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:53,960 who'd worked with the Daily Mail team on producing that article. 643 00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:56,560 And I said it's fantastic article. 644 00:41:56,720 --> 00:41:59,240 We did give you quite a lot of information. 645 00:41:59,240 --> 00:42:01,480 It would have been a nice to have had a mention. 646 00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:05,600 And he looked at me and there was a pause and he said, well, 647 00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:09,280 you know how it is, Brian. So. 648 00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:12,600 And that was of course that we weren't quite in the club. 649 00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:15,560 The UK column was was there, but we weren't in the club. 650 00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:18,880 But the point I really want to make out of this is that when 651 00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:23,800 the Daily Mail was given factual information and a lot, a lot of 652 00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:27,680 it, they were not frightened at really ruffling, ruffling the 653 00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:31,920 feathers. But I I sense that now papers or 654 00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:36,440 even more scaredy cat of actually getting in and doing 655 00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:38,680 the business when they find something's wrong. 656 00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:41,440 Or is that is that a bit unfair, Eugenie? 657 00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,360 To be honest, I don't know, because I'm not part of that 658 00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:54,000 world anymore. My sense is that journalists 659 00:42:54,320 --> 00:43:00,400 the, the, the most courageous journalists are the freelancers 660 00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:08,080 like Vanessa, like Vanessa Bailey, who, you know, perform 661 00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:11,200 proper brave journalistic functions. 662 00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:16,840 There's an awful lot because I'm, I should say that I've, 663 00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:20,040 I've, I've was an energy National Union of Journalists 664 00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:23,760 activists for a long time as well, while I was a working 665 00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,400 journalist and I'm in fact a life member. 666 00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:35,720 And what I see now in my union is an awful lot of attention on 667 00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:44,080 DI and equality and protecting people and being nice to people 668 00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:48,640 banging on about misinformation, disinformation, malinformation. 669 00:43:49,240 --> 00:43:54,440 We must, we must support the BBC as a public service broadcaster 670 00:43:54,760 --> 00:44:00,280 and a kind of really top level naivety about how the world 671 00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:04,440 actually works. And you know, and despite my 672 00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:08,960 best endeavours, I've still to get my union to explain to me 673 00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:13,320 what their different, what their definition is of misinformation, 674 00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:17,920 disinformation, malinformation. Nobody's provided me with that 675 00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:20,840 yet. And I think that even among 676 00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:24,280 those who are not members of the NUJ, because it's, it will be 677 00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:32,960 the minority who are there, is this kind of, it's there's a 678 00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:36,680 lack of, I think there's a lack of bravery and I think there's a 679 00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:42,040 lack of rigour. And I don't, you know, I'm very 680 00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:46,280 glad that my daughter did not decide to be a journalist, let's 681 00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:49,000 put it like that. I wouldn't have ever discouraged 682 00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:50,720 her. And I think she would have made 683 00:44:50,720 --> 00:44:52,560 a very good, very feisty journalist. 684 00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:59,640 But I'm very glad that she's chosen a different half because, 685 00:44:59,960 --> 00:45:04,800 and I know every generation will say this, you know, about what's 686 00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:07,760 come since. But I think in terms of the 687 00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:13,640 media, and that applies to broadcast media as well, I think 688 00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:21,200 that we are in a, we are in a definitely in a, we're 689 00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:23,800 definitely in a worse place. I mean, I was listening because 690 00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:26,920 I forced myself to do it. Marianna Springs takedown of 691 00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:35,480 Kate Sharima Shamarani Shamarani on her Mariana down Marianna in 692 00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:38,600 conspiracy land thing. So basically they've they've 693 00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:44,440 unpicked the Panorama 1 and repurposed it as as A5 parter B 694 00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:47,600 for BB for Radio 4. And I was just listening to that 695 00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:50,240 and thinking, where's your basic journalism here, Madam? 696 00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:55,040 Where is it you refer to? I've spoken to experts and they 697 00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:57,480 say, well, sorry, who are these experts and why aren't you 698 00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:04,160 quoting them directly? And it's it's this, this is the 699 00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:07,840 level that we seem to be at now that it's people pick an agenda 700 00:46:08,240 --> 00:46:10,880 and they. I mean, yeah, as I say, it's 701 00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:14,800 complicated because back in the day that Guardian or the Daily 702 00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:17,920 Express would pick an agenda and to a certain extent you would 703 00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:22,400 manipulate the news into it. But it was always underpinned by 704 00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:26,840 much higher standards of research, writing and common 705 00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:31,720 sense, frankly. Yeah, Eugenie, if we may, can we 706 00:46:31,720 --> 00:46:37,480 just go a little bit into ownership and bias of, of the 707 00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:41,080 media? Very early on, as we started 708 00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:44,720 talking today, you, you mentioned proprietors and, and 709 00:46:44,720 --> 00:46:49,400 that they had a natural spin and you, you, you, the newspaper was 710 00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:53,800 aware of that. And I, I think we'd all say yes, 711 00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:56,880 we, we understand that. So we, we can have sort of 712 00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:59,000 political spin across the papers. 713 00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:04,040 So we could be left left wing with the Star or the Tribune, 714 00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:08,600 and then we can, we can move supposedly right wing across to 715 00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:12,360 whatever you want to choose the Express and the Daily Mail. 716 00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:17,120 And then we have the, I'm smiling as I say this, but the, 717 00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:22,160 you know, the Times and the Telegraph that try to sell the 718 00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:25,160 idea that they're above all that and what they're saying is 719 00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:27,280 absolutely true. But of course they're also 720 00:47:27,720 --> 00:47:32,680 controlled. The Guardian has, has has long 721 00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:37,560 sat and said, well, we're controlled by an independent 722 00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:41,080 board that that that was the Scott Trust if I remember 723 00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:44,200 correctly. And therefore you can trust the 724 00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:47,960 Guardian because because we're not pulled in One Direction or 725 00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:51,960 or the other. But there has always been 726 00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:57,640 control, particularly through powerful individuals such as 727 00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:02,120 Murdoch for example. But now we've got something 728 00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:06,120 else, it seems to me at work. I've mentioned the grouping up, 729 00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:11,680 but it's as though there's a unified political control coming 730 00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:16,320 over the press and media so that it's not even going to go in the 731 00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:20,560 direction of left and right, Conservatives, Labour. 732 00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:25,760 It's simply going to go on what we should believe. 733 00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:30,880 And this is if we take global warming as one subject, it's as 734 00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:37,120 though all the papers now will only print the line that the 735 00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:41,680 United Nations or the World Economic Forum say we should be 736 00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:46,720 following over climate change. So the control of the papers 737 00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:51,080 seems now to not even be a fragmented control. 738 00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:57,200 It's a centralised control, not even in UK, it's higher than 739 00:48:57,200 --> 00:48:59,080 that. It's a global control. 740 00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:03,920 Is that a bit of a, is that a bit of an over over the top 741 00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:07,400 analysis? How do you see the the press 742 00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:10,680 today in this issue of Bias and Control? 743 00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:19,880 I It's really difficult to know how much of that has always been 744 00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:23,680 there. I mean, certainly there have 745 00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:26,720 been stories and certainly around the topic that the UK 746 00:49:26,720 --> 00:49:31,200 column, you know, you have, you have been pursuing forever, 747 00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:34,880 which is, you know, about child abuse, paedophilia, etcetera, 748 00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:41,760 etcetera. The the reluctance of UK media 749 00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:46,280 to go anywhere near that left or right in the middle. 750 00:49:47,320 --> 00:49:50,240 That has certainly been, you know, that that has been my 751 00:49:50,240 --> 00:49:54,720 experience of that, not necessarily first hand of seeing 752 00:49:54,720 --> 00:49:58,920 stories being buried, but just an awareness that we don't go 753 00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:00,720 near that. OK. 754 00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:04,280 So I think that that has there's always been elements of this, 755 00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:07,320 what's really, as you say, in your face now. 756 00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:11,640 And of course, we experienced it first with, with during the 757 00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:15,040 COVID years. Well, we didn't know, we didn't 758 00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:18,880 experience it first, but we most really starkly when literally 759 00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:24,200 literally every media outlet, digital print, whatever was 760 00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:29,840 saying exactly the same thing and questioning nothing, which I 761 00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:33,520 think, you know, I, I had been sceptical and wondering about 762 00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:37,600 what how the world works all my life, but that really shook me 763 00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:43,320 to to the core. Oh my God, it's just this is 764 00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:47,160 just 100 karat propaganda with nobody making any effort to 765 00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:49,880 disguise it. And as you say, now we have the, 766 00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:54,640 you know, the boiling climate and, and, and this extraordinary 767 00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:57,600 narrative where, you know, it's going to hit 30°. 768 00:50:57,600 --> 00:50:59,840 You've all got to stay indoors and close your close your 769 00:50:59,840 --> 00:51:01,240 curtains because you're going to die. 770 00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:04,040 Yeah, next week you're going on holiday to Turkey. 771 00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:06,880 Don't get it. Again, what I don't know, 772 00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:11,000 because I'm not an insider and haven't been for a long time, is 773 00:51:11,240 --> 00:51:18,280 whether this is just an understanding or whether it goes 774 00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:23,080 deeper than that. And there is, yeah, as you say, 775 00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:26,360 it's being fed down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, 776 00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:30,240 down. And it's coming from, as so much 777 00:51:30,240 --> 00:51:34,960 else appears to be, is coming from somewhere that is, that is 778 00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:38,960 well outside our control. You know, I've worked for 779 00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:41,440 various proprietors. I've worked for Robert Maxwell. 780 00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:44,400 I've never worked for Murdoch. I can never bring myself to work 781 00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:48,280 for Murdoch. And I worked for Maxwell, I 782 00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:51,640 worked for various iterations on the Daily Express because I was 783 00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:54,360 there for five or six years. I've worked for the Guardian, 784 00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:56,480 which has always been the Scott Trust and still is the Scott 785 00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:59,000 Trust, although it seems to have compromised itself massively 786 00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:01,560 with the sell out of the Observer to Tortoise. 787 00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:09,120 And yeah, I mean, it's, but now it's yeah, everybody's. 788 00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:13,680 And you almost think, well, OK, has somebody put out a press 789 00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:17,680 release somewhere that says you've all got to publish this 790 00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:22,600 about the global warming today? This is today's spin on We're 791 00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,360 going to boil. And that's how that is actually 792 00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:28,480 how it now feels. The other thing that I was 793 00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:31,560 talking about was somebody quite recently is the stories will 794 00:52:31,640 --> 00:52:36,240 appear and then completely vanish. 795 00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:39,320 Does nobody ever follows up anymore? 796 00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:43,400 Nobody follows up. Back in my day, if you had a 797 00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:47,120 good story, you'd follow the bloody thing up, you know, you'd 798 00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:50,240 find out, you know, a week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks down the line. 799 00:52:50,240 --> 00:52:53,280 Well, what became of that story? Did it, did it come? 800 00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:56,400 Was it, was that the outcome or was that the outcome? 801 00:52:56,760 --> 00:52:59,040 Now they just disappear. Nobody follows up. 802 00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:03,360 I've challenged mainstream journalists on that, that, that 803 00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:06,400 subject and said to them, yeah, but the problem is you never, 804 00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:08,720 you never follow up, you never stay on the subject. 805 00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:14,120 And in fact, the Daily Mail did not follow up on its 10 pages 806 00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:20,520 on, you know, on common purpose because their 10 pages 807 00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:25,440 demonstrated that they'd clearly seen risks and, and problems 808 00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:27,520 with the organisation of what it was doing. 809 00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:31,840 And if you, if you put 10 pages into a Saturday, I'll qualify. 810 00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:34,560 I think it was 9 1/2 but I've called it 10. 811 00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:37,920 But we're talking a lot. If you've done that on a 812 00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:41,440 Saturday and you've really grabbed people's attention. 813 00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:45,720 There should have been spin off stories for the next two years 814 00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:48,240 but it didn't. It all it all went quiet to the 815 00:53:48,240 --> 00:53:52,920 extent I wondered whether even Paul Dacre and his team had been 816 00:53:52,960 --> 00:53:57,040 bought off or pressurised. Listening to you saying that, I 817 00:53:57,040 --> 00:54:04,640 was thinking, OK, quite possibly they ran it and obviously kept 818 00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:07,200 it to themselves in the run up to running it. 819 00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:13,840 They ran it and then possibly it hit the fan after that and 820 00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:16,960 whoever was pulling the common purpose strings at that 821 00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:20,080 particular point said to to take care. 822 00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:23,400 Isaiah, Paul, Oh boy, none of no more of that. 823 00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:26,360 Thank you very much. We'll just call draw a line 824 00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:28,040 under that, but please don't revisit. 825 00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:32,080 I'm sure you're right, because common purpose at that time was 826 00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:36,200 was absolutely involved in creating what I regard as 827 00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:38,680 censorship organisations for the press. 828 00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:43,080 Full fact was in there, the Media Standards Trust, and that 829 00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:46,000 was the whole reason that the Daily Mail printed the article 830 00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:49,600 in the 1st place. But yeah, wheels within wheels. 831 00:54:50,680 --> 00:54:54,120 The other thing which I can't resist mentioning is because 832 00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:58,560 you've talked about the child abuse subject and there does 833 00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:01,240 seem to be a wall of silence over this. 834 00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:05,320 You'll get isolated reports, but nobody takes it any further. 835 00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:10,800 But I recently was able to talk to, well, it was actually a 836 00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:17,240 couple of journalists in the Telegraph and one of them was 837 00:55:17,240 --> 00:55:22,480 following up on a a family court case, horrific, where a mother's 838 00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:26,320 lost her twins. And they, they were clearly 839 00:55:26,320 --> 00:55:30,480 interested in the in the case, but in, in our, you know, 840 00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:34,080 discussion, what what then took place was them saying, well, 841 00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:39,320 yeah, but the trouble is that the, the mother's evidence is 842 00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:42,080 all contained within family court documents and we're not 843 00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:47,360 allowed to read those documents. And I said, well, isn't that the 844 00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:52,360 start of your story? The fact that that the mother 845 00:55:52,360 --> 00:55:55,440 who's trying to defend herself can't defend herself because of 846 00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:59,080 family court rules on what, what can be said and what can't. 847 00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:02,880 And the fact that you, as a national newspaper can't report 848 00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:06,360 the truth because it's been censored by the Family Court, 849 00:56:06,360 --> 00:56:10,080 isn't that where you start? And there was this pause. 850 00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:13,600 And I thought, yeah, that one hit home, but I didn't get it. 851 00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:18,160 I didn't get a response. And then when we discussed a 852 00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:20,720 little bit more, of course. Well, the trouble is, even if we 853 00:56:20,720 --> 00:56:22,960 do get through that barrier, then we've got to get through 854 00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:25,240 the editorial team. And then we're going to have to 855 00:56:25,240 --> 00:56:27,560 get through the legal team. And the legal team are going to 856 00:56:27,560 --> 00:56:30,240 say, oh, no, we can't break. We can't break the law. 857 00:56:30,240 --> 00:56:34,560 We're going to have to ask the the local authority to release 858 00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:38,600 those family court papers, which of course they're never going to 859 00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:41,480 do. So I just, I just found it 860 00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:45,280 bizarre that I was there talking with heavy hitter journalists 861 00:56:45,280 --> 00:56:50,640 for the key newspaper and and they knew something was wrong, 862 00:56:50,800 --> 00:56:53,120 but they couldn't seem to get a story out of it. 863 00:56:53,440 --> 00:56:58,120 And the second journalist was really interesting because they 864 00:56:58,120 --> 00:57:01,240 contacted me because families had said if you want to know 865 00:57:01,240 --> 00:57:03,640 more about the subject, you talked to Brian Garish from the 866 00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:06,120 UK column. So I get a call. 867 00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:09,960 We had a very nice discussion. I tried to be really helpful, 868 00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:13,040 but I got to the point where I said, well, the problem is you 869 00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:15,000 can't deal with the story because you don't even know the 870 00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:19,800 questions to ask. Their knowledge was so limited. 871 00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:22,880 And, and at one point there was a bit of a rebuttal and they 872 00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:25,800 said to me when I'd said, well, there's no reporting from the 873 00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:28,320 courts. Oh, yes, journalists can go into 874 00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:31,360 the family courts. And I said, well, they can now 875 00:57:31,360 --> 00:57:36,480 occasionally, but their reporting is still controlled by 876 00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:40,680 a solitary judge in a court with no jury, so it's censored. 877 00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:45,520 I provided them with a lot of information, you know, to help 878 00:57:45,520 --> 00:57:47,800 them. I didn't even receive a thank 879 00:57:47,800 --> 00:57:50,160 you back. So I'm going to say at the 880 00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:55,080 moment the Telegraph has dropped very low in my, my, my book. 881 00:57:55,760 --> 00:57:58,680 But this is this is not unusual, Eugenia, I don't think. 882 00:57:59,120 --> 00:58:02,840 I don't think it is as again, I will just caveat to say that I 883 00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:06,840 am not obviously in the midst of that anymore. 884 00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:12,440 But certainly, you know, that sounds pretty spineless. 885 00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:16,080 And yeah, I mean, as you were talking, I was thinking, well, 886 00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:19,600 there's the story right there. The fact that you that you can't 887 00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:22,320 you can't you can't investigate the story you want to 888 00:58:22,320 --> 00:58:24,400 investigate because you're not allowed to. 889 00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:27,400 By the way, the family courts are configured and what's 890 00:58:27,400 --> 00:58:30,720 allowed, you know, what's sub judice etcetera. 891 00:58:32,120 --> 00:58:35,280 There's a story isn't that isn't that worth an investigation? 892 00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:37,480 How do we get here? What happened? 893 00:58:37,480 --> 00:58:40,040 At what point did the law change that this had, you know, that 894 00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:43,320 family courts basically became private. 895 00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:45,800 Why? Whose decision was that? 896 00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:47,360 You know, it's a massive story there. 897 00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:50,440 But no, they they will not touch that. 898 00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:54,920 And partly they won't touch that because they don't have the 899 00:58:54,920 --> 00:58:58,040 resources enough bodies to do it justice. 900 00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:03,320 But that is exactly the type of story that possibly not that one 901 00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:07,200 for the same reasons that it never got looked at properly 902 00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:11,760 back in the day. But those sort of questions were 903 00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:14,880 the sort of questions that investigative journalists in the 904 00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:20,880 70s, eighties, 90s would have asked that type of probing 905 00:59:20,880 --> 00:59:22,480 question. And those are the questions that 906 00:59:22,480 --> 00:59:25,440 you guys ask. You understand investigative 907 00:59:25,440 --> 00:59:29,280 journalism in a way that I don't see any evidence of. 908 00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:32,000 You know, as I say, circling back to Marianna Spring, she's 909 00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:33,800 supposed to be an investigative journalist. 910 00:59:34,880 --> 00:59:36,360 I don't see any evidence of that. 911 00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:39,320 And I'm trying to be generous here because she, no, she's 912 00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:43,640 incredibly irritating to listen to, but I don't see any, any 913 00:59:43,640 --> 00:59:48,720 evidence whatsoever that she understands what being an 914 00:59:48,720 --> 00:59:53,080 investigative journalist and looking in every direction you 915 00:59:53,080 --> 00:59:57,360 can for your for the evidence before you start compiling your 916 00:59:57,360 --> 00:59:59,480 story. I don't see any evidence of that 917 00:59:59,880 --> 01:00:02,760 She got. It seems to me that what she's 918 01:00:02,760 --> 01:00:06,560 done with Kate is basically it landed in her lap. 919 01:00:07,560 --> 01:00:10,440 It sounds to me as though that it's all personal family 920 01:00:10,440 --> 01:00:12,720 dynamics going on in the background here. 921 01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:16,280 No idea. Guessing she was The story 922 01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:21,000 landed in her lap and she's made the facts fit into absolutely 923 01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:25,520 well. The facts fit the narrative that 924 01:00:25,520 --> 01:00:31,520 she has been tasked to deliver and there is no, it's not 925 01:00:31,520 --> 01:00:34,560 underpinned. You know, I, I have no issue at 926 01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:36,800 all with people coming to conclusions that I don't agree 927 01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:41,840 with, none at all, provided the evidence is there that they have 928 01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:45,120 actually researched it and they've stood the story up. 929 01:00:46,080 --> 01:00:49,560 And this is there seems to be so much of this way something 930 01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:51,680 appears to be an investigation and then when you actually look 931 01:00:51,680 --> 01:00:57,320 at it, it isn't. Yeah, I was at a music festival 932 01:00:57,320 --> 01:00:59,920 at the weekend. Sounds beautiful in Dorset, 933 01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:04,160 really lovely weather, lovely environment, lovely people 934 01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:08,560 there. And amongst the people there, 935 01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:12,200 there was a lot of discussion going on at various points about 936 01:01:12,480 --> 01:01:17,920 Marianas, Marianas Springs attack on Kate Chamerani and 937 01:01:17,920 --> 01:01:23,080 people were I, I, I was surprised people don't like 938 01:01:23,080 --> 01:01:30,560 Marianas Spring because they regard her as underhand in the 939 01:01:30,560 --> 01:01:34,520 way she does things. But my goodness, people really 940 01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:39,320 did not like the way what they they believed is that she'd gone 941 01:01:39,320 --> 01:01:45,760 in and manipulated what was a highly personal thing for Kate 942 01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:49,000 Chameroni and her family. All families have problems and 943 01:01:49,280 --> 01:01:53,720 divisions at sometimes, but Marianna Spring twisted that and 944 01:01:53,720 --> 01:01:58,720 used it to get the story she wanted, and people picked up on 945 01:01:58,720 --> 01:02:00,800 it. So if Marianna Spring was 946 01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:05,960 unpopular previously, I picked up a new level from from just 947 01:02:05,960 --> 01:02:09,480 that environment over the weekend where people said what 948 01:02:09,480 --> 01:02:15,360 this woman did was outrageous. So maybe people are beginning to 949 01:02:15,560 --> 01:02:19,000 get tougher and, you know, call this thing, this sort of thing 950 01:02:19,000 --> 01:02:21,400 out, which would be really good news, I think. 951 01:02:22,080 --> 01:02:24,880 It definitely would if if people out, you know, sort of out with 952 01:02:24,880 --> 01:02:30,600 the the, you know, the the more, the more the better informed 953 01:02:32,080 --> 01:02:35,560 among us if people, people did listen to that. 954 01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:38,720 I mean, I'd say I haven't seen the TV programme and I actually 955 01:02:38,960 --> 01:02:42,160 don't need to now having listened listened to her drivel 956 01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:48,200 on for five episodes. But yeah, I mean, hopefully 957 01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:53,200 people will, will, will who, who do listen to, to, to, to what 958 01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:57,040 she's been saying will think, well, OK, fine and dandy. 959 01:02:57,040 --> 01:03:00,680 But you've, you've basically positioned yourself in the 960 01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:06,800 middle of a family tragedy and you've found reasons to use it 961 01:03:06,800 --> 01:03:13,720 to pursue your own agenda and nothing more, you know? 962 01:03:14,960 --> 01:03:18,640 And yeah, let's just hope that there are, even if it's a few 963 01:03:18,640 --> 01:03:21,800 dozen people that they merge with that that would be good. 964 01:03:22,240 --> 01:03:25,240 That would be good. We're heading for the top of the 965 01:03:25,240 --> 01:03:28,760 hour, but just a couple more questions because I can't resist 966 01:03:28,760 --> 01:03:33,000 it. You, Jimmy, what's the first 967 01:03:33,080 --> 01:03:35,680 one? The first one is colleagues, 968 01:03:35,800 --> 01:03:41,480 other colleagues of, of your of your year, maybe younger that 969 01:03:41,480 --> 01:03:45,560 you're still in contact with. Are you a completely lone voice? 970 01:03:45,560 --> 01:03:47,640 Are you alone in the way you see things? 971 01:03:47,640 --> 01:03:52,200 Or have you got other former journalists and reporters who 972 01:03:52,200 --> 01:03:56,040 who are starting to see the world as you see it now? 973 01:03:56,640 --> 01:04:01,840 I'm actually not in touch with that many people who who I 974 01:04:01,840 --> 01:04:05,440 worked with, I tended always to be among the youngest. 975 01:04:05,440 --> 01:04:09,320 And so unfortunately, chronology has seen off quite a lot. 976 01:04:11,280 --> 01:04:17,240 But what I have noticed and what I find incredibly disappointing 977 01:04:17,240 --> 01:04:20,000 among among those of my contemporaries with whom I am 978 01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:24,040 still so connected on Facebook and where I've stuck my head 979 01:04:24,040 --> 01:04:29,480 above the parapet, which I did a lot, particularly in 2021 going 980 01:04:29,480 --> 01:04:31,840 into 22. And still now, you know, I still 981 01:04:31,840 --> 01:04:34,680 do it. Now I get shot down. 982 01:04:35,800 --> 01:04:38,920 And these are by people who I worked alongside who've come 983 01:04:39,000 --> 01:04:43,720 through the same, the same environment, you know, learning 984 01:04:43,720 --> 01:04:46,280 environment as journalists as I did. 985 01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:51,600 And they shoot me down the, the, the whole vaccine debate in 986 01:04:51,600 --> 01:04:54,440 particular. And, and I personally, I've been 987 01:04:55,000 --> 01:04:57,480 a, a vaccine sceptic actually since before my daughter was 988 01:04:57,480 --> 01:05:00,840 born and she's 32 now. And I was doing my research way 989 01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:04,280 back there and I'm actually writing, I was doing research 990 01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:08,400 for articles that I was writing for sort of the health press, 991 01:05:09,680 --> 01:05:14,440 consumer press back then and asking questions, which was 992 01:05:14,440 --> 01:05:17,800 much, much, much harder to do this sort of research back then 993 01:05:17,840 --> 01:05:20,760 because there was no Internet or a very basic one. 994 01:05:23,040 --> 01:05:28,000 And you know, now whenever, whenever I put anything 995 01:05:29,360 --> 01:05:36,040 questions safe and effective, I will get probably one of these 996 01:05:36,040 --> 01:05:38,240 former colleagues. We've never complete, we've 997 01:05:38,240 --> 01:05:41,360 never formally fallen out over it, but one of them will jump 998 01:05:41,360 --> 01:05:43,480 all over me. And they're publishing all kinds 999 01:05:43,480 --> 01:05:47,040 of things at the moment. Particularly they're picking up 1000 01:05:48,080 --> 01:05:52,760 the inevitable tropes on RFK Junior and just publishing them 1001 01:05:52,760 --> 01:05:54,560 without comment. And that's the other thing that 1002 01:05:54,560 --> 01:05:59,680 I find really depressing is the number of, of, of journalists 1003 01:05:59,920 --> 01:06:01,760 who will just run with other stuff. 1004 01:06:01,760 --> 01:06:06,840 They've seen people stick on Facebook or Twitter or whatever 1005 01:06:07,120 --> 01:06:09,520 X or whatever and just cut and paste it. 1006 01:06:09,840 --> 01:06:12,000 Sorry. Well, we taught to actually go 1007 01:06:12,000 --> 01:06:16,240 and check your sources, which I always do. 1008 01:06:16,240 --> 01:06:19,080 I, I will not, I will not cut and paste and copy anything 1009 01:06:19,240 --> 01:06:22,160 without checking the the core sources and the number of times 1010 01:06:22,440 --> 01:06:27,440 I go back into Facebook and say that's wrong and nobody really 1011 01:06:27,440 --> 01:06:29,640 takes any notice because the moment has passed. 1012 01:06:30,960 --> 01:06:34,240 You're still clearly seen as a rebel, which is where we, we 1013 01:06:34,240 --> 01:06:40,160 started in the interview. I, I'd like to say I've you've 1014 01:06:40,160 --> 01:06:44,360 got a background there, left wing background and and 1015 01:06:44,400 --> 01:06:49,320 Communist Party. I particularly look back and 1016 01:06:49,320 --> 01:06:53,280 think to myself, well at least when we had the left wingers, 1017 01:06:53,280 --> 01:06:56,040 the genuine left wingers, and particularly when they were very 1018 01:06:56,040 --> 01:07:01,920 strong left wing MPs, you've used the expression that you've 1019 01:07:01,920 --> 01:07:05,160 always supported the underdog. But that's what I sensed about 1020 01:07:05,160 --> 01:07:07,280 them. I might not agree with all their 1021 01:07:07,280 --> 01:07:11,880 politics, but at least they did have some strong values and they 1022 01:07:11,880 --> 01:07:16,040 were trying to do their best for the ordinary man and woman, the 1023 01:07:16,040 --> 01:07:19,800 ordinary family. So I I still have huge respect. 1024 01:07:19,800 --> 01:07:24,200 And I think the fact that we've lost some of those strong left 1025 01:07:24,200 --> 01:07:27,960 wing people in in parliament, certainly we've lost them 1026 01:07:28,200 --> 01:07:35,160 within, you know, the limp, limp wristed Keir Starmer type Labor 1027 01:07:35,160 --> 01:07:37,480 Party. I think it's a real loss. 1028 01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:41,720 We need some of that that drive. I agree absolutely. 1029 01:07:41,720 --> 01:07:44,480 I mean, you know, you will remember the Dennis Skinners of 1030 01:07:44,480 --> 01:07:49,120 the of, of you know, of your and these were, I mean, I think the 1031 01:07:49,120 --> 01:07:53,120 absolutely key thing about the the yeah, the limp wristed a lot 1032 01:07:53,120 --> 01:07:56,000 right across the board is that most of them have never had a 1033 01:07:56,000 --> 01:07:59,560 proper day job. So, you know, back in the 70s 1034 01:07:59,560 --> 01:08:04,240 and 80s and, you know, and I have, as you will not be 1035 01:08:04,240 --> 01:08:07,880 surprised to learn that I was not exactly over the moon when 1036 01:08:07,880 --> 01:08:14,000 Margaret Thatcher was elected. But what I do remember about her 1037 01:08:14,000 --> 01:08:17,120 is at least she's had a day job. She had some experience of 1038 01:08:17,120 --> 01:08:19,240 industry. I mean, albeit I don't think her 1039 01:08:19,240 --> 01:08:24,560 policies serve British industry at all well, but she had, you 1040 01:08:24,560 --> 01:08:29,080 know, she had that experience and, you know, and on and, you 1041 01:08:29,080 --> 01:08:31,279 know, within the Labor Party, you had the likes of Dennis 1042 01:08:31,279 --> 01:08:32,880 Skinner, who'd been a working miner. 1043 01:08:33,000 --> 01:08:34,840 He knew what he was bloody talking about. 1044 01:08:35,240 --> 01:08:39,120 Now they, they get their, their, their degrees from uni, they 1045 01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:42,600 start off as researchers, they become spads and suddenly their 1046 01:08:42,600 --> 01:08:44,200 MPs. And that is right across the 1047 01:08:44,200 --> 01:08:46,080 board. They have never had day jobs. 1048 01:08:46,319 --> 01:08:50,040 They do not actually know what it's like to run a small 1049 01:08:50,040 --> 01:08:56,160 business to, to run, to be part of a big organisation, to do 1050 01:08:56,160 --> 01:08:59,359 some do manual labour. I mean, they, they don't know, 1051 01:08:59,399 --> 01:09:03,479 they have no idea. So it's which I think is in 1052 01:09:03,479 --> 01:09:07,439 large measure explains why there's a a real lack of empathy 1053 01:09:07,720 --> 01:09:11,880 between MPs and the people they purport to represent. 1054 01:09:12,640 --> 01:09:15,240 Absolutely. And finally. 1055 01:09:17,120 --> 01:09:21,359 Well this is absolutely true. I, I regard it as an honour to 1056 01:09:21,359 --> 01:09:25,319 be here talking to you because you are the full career 1057 01:09:25,319 --> 01:09:30,000 professional journalist. I, I'm here very much as a, a 1058 01:09:30,319 --> 01:09:33,920 self taught person who still can't quite believe that I've 1059 01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:38,960 ended up doing what what I do. And so for you to be engaged 1060 01:09:38,960 --> 01:09:41,520 with the UK column is yeah, it's an honour. 1061 01:09:41,520 --> 01:09:42,960 So I'd like to thank you for that. 1062 01:09:43,319 --> 01:09:46,600 My question though is how did he actually find the UK column and 1063 01:09:46,600 --> 01:09:47,720 when? When was that? 1064 01:09:48,479 --> 01:09:53,840 Oh goodness, it was sometime. It was sometime, sometime in 1065 01:09:53,840 --> 01:09:56,840 2020, and I can't remember exactly how. 1066 01:09:57,840 --> 01:10:01,080 I mean, I rumbled. I rumbled the whole COVID thing 1067 01:10:01,280 --> 01:10:04,440 pretty early. And I have AI, have a master's 1068 01:10:04,440 --> 01:10:07,160 degree in employment law, which is a whole separate story. 1069 01:10:08,240 --> 01:10:12,280 And I had a look at that coronavirus bill and I looked at 1070 01:10:12,280 --> 01:10:15,160 it and I thought, this guy over 400 pages, there's no way 1071 01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:19,320 somebody wrote this over the weekend, which was pretty much 1072 01:10:19,320 --> 01:10:21,200 what Boris Johnson was suggesting to us. 1073 01:10:21,200 --> 01:10:23,600 Oh, we've put this together and it's all ready to go. 1074 01:10:24,080 --> 01:10:26,120 I thought, no, you haven't. That's been sitting on a shelf 1075 01:10:26,480 --> 01:10:28,280 waiting to be dusted down and tweaked. 1076 01:10:29,520 --> 01:10:32,400 And it flowed from there. And I started and I real and I 1077 01:10:32,400 --> 01:10:34,200 was being bombarded with propaganda. 1078 01:10:36,280 --> 01:10:39,600 And what am I? What am I listening to? 1079 01:10:39,600 --> 01:10:42,280 What am I reading here? This is, this is nonsense. 1080 01:10:43,080 --> 01:10:45,160 You know, where, where's the other side of the story? 1081 01:10:45,360 --> 01:10:47,080 There must be another side to the story. 1082 01:10:47,400 --> 01:10:54,560 So I started digging and delving and at some point I obviously I 1083 01:10:54,560 --> 01:11:00,960 came across the UK column and you know, my, my hardwired lefty 1084 01:11:00,960 --> 01:11:04,840 thing, say, oh God, are these all right wing extremists? 1085 01:11:06,400 --> 01:11:10,400 And then I realised, no, you're just looking to see if you can 1086 01:11:10,400 --> 01:11:15,520 find out what's going on, basically what is actually going 1087 01:11:15,520 --> 01:11:17,880 on in this country, what's going on in the world? 1088 01:11:18,520 --> 01:11:22,120 Why are we following this insane agenda? 1089 01:11:24,720 --> 01:11:29,080 You know, the insanity of where, where you had intelligent grown 1090 01:11:29,080 --> 01:11:33,520 up people wearing a mask to go into a pub, taking the mask off 1091 01:11:33,520 --> 01:11:37,280 to sit down, standing up to go to the loo, putting their mask 1092 01:11:37,280 --> 01:11:40,080 on. Yeah, you were the you. 1093 01:11:40,080 --> 01:11:43,920 And yeah, not just you, but others were the ones asking the 1094 01:11:43,920 --> 01:11:47,760 questions. And so I gravitated to that and 1095 01:11:47,760 --> 01:11:50,560 I did, I worked with Dan Aston Gregory for a while as a 1096 01:11:50,560 --> 01:11:55,800 volunteer doing some of some of the the grant work on his, on 1097 01:11:55,800 --> 01:11:58,240 his episodes when he was doing the pandemic podcast. 1098 01:11:58,640 --> 01:12:02,600 And it was just really that, and I've, and this is this is where 1099 01:12:02,600 --> 01:12:08,080 I so quite Oh my God, I found my tribe in this world of insanity, 1100 01:12:08,160 --> 01:12:09,520 but I can't tell you exactly when. 1101 01:12:09,800 --> 01:12:11,360 I don't know what the trigger was. 1102 01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:15,880 Well, whatever we are, we're very glad that you did find us, 1103 01:12:15,880 --> 01:12:19,760 Eugenie. And it's it's been great to talk 1104 01:12:19,760 --> 01:12:21,520 to you today. Really interesting. 1105 01:12:21,560 --> 01:12:23,680 Lots more questions we could ask. 1106 01:12:24,200 --> 01:12:27,080 Maybe there will come a point where maybe we should have a 1107 01:12:27,080 --> 01:12:32,560 look at a Part 2 or something. But yeah, the press media, very 1108 01:12:32,560 --> 01:12:35,200 important. The so called 4th estate, isn't 1109 01:12:35,200 --> 01:12:37,760 it? And, and we do need to know 1110 01:12:38,200 --> 01:12:41,160 what's happening to it, what it's doing and who's controlling 1111 01:12:41,160 --> 01:12:42,800 it. So I think there's probably a 1112 01:12:42,800 --> 01:12:45,920 lot more questions to ask. Thank you for joining me. 1113 01:12:46,400 --> 01:12:48,240 Well, thank you very much for inviting me. 1114 01:12:48,240 --> 01:12:52,480 Let's not play the angered out honour you, but it has been an 1115 01:12:52,480 --> 01:12:56,320 honour and a privilege to to be able to share some of this and 1116 01:12:56,320 --> 01:13:00,640 hopefully throw a bit of light on what it was like then, on 1117 01:13:00,680 --> 01:13:02,560 what it's like there, what it's like now. 1118 01:13:03,240 --> 01:13:04,320 Great. Thank you.