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A Day Like Today: Memoirs
John Humphrys
For more than three decades, millions of Britons have woken to the sound of John Humphrys’ voice. As presenter of Radio 4’s Today, the nation’s most popular news programme, he is famed for his tough interviewing, his deep misgivings about authority in its many forms and his passionatecommitment to a variety of causes. A Day Like Today charts John’s journey from the poverty of his post-war childhood in Cardiff, leaving school at fifteen, to the summits of broadcasting. Humphrys was the BBC’s youngest foreign correspondent; he was the first reporter at the catastrophe of Aberfan, an experience that marked him for ever; he was in the White House when Richard Nixon became the first American president to resign; in South Africa during the dying years of apartheid; and in war zones around the globe throughout his career. John was also the first journalist to present the Nine O’Clock News on television. Humphrys pulls no punches and now, freed from the restrictions of being a BBC journalist, he reflects on the politicians he has interrogated and the controversies he has reported on and been involved in, including the interview that forced the resignation of his own boss, the director general. In typically candid style, he also weighs in on the role the BBC itself has played in our national life – for good and ill – and the broader health of the political system today. A Day Like Today is both a sharp, shrewd memoir and a backstage account of the great newsworthy moments in recent history – from the voice behind the country’s most authoritative microphone.
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Copyright (#uf192a6ac-418b-5fc5-bf50-b19d2d1196fb)
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com)
This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2019
Copyright © John Humphrys 2019
Cover image © Jeff Overs/Getty Images
All images courtesy of the author unless otherwise stated.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future editions of this book.
John Humphrys asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007415571
eBook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780007415601
Version: 2019-09-13
Dedication (#uf192a6ac-418b-5fc5-bf50-b19d2d1196fb)
For Sarah
Contents
1 Cover (#ud1f01468-19a4-5f89-bd04-8225e2e76ed1)
2 Title Page
3 Copyright
4 Dedication
5 Contents (#uf192a6ac-418b-5fc5-bf50-b19d2d1196fb)
6 Prologue
7 Part 1 – Yesterday and Today
8 1 A childhood of smells
9 2 The teenAGE pAGE
10 3 Building a cathedral
11 4 A gold-plated, diamond-encrusted tip-off
12 5 A sub-machine gun on expenses
13 6 A job that requires no talent
14 Part 2 – Today and Today
15 7 A very strange time to be at work
16 8 Why do you interrupt so much?
17 9 ‘Come on, unleash hell!’
18 10 A pretty straight sort of guy?
19 11 Management are deeply unimpressed
20 12 Hamstrung by a fundamental niceness
21 13 A meeting with ‘C’
22 14 The director general: my part in his downfall
23 15 Turn me into a religious Jew!
24 Part 3 – Today and Tomorrow
25 16 The political deal
26 17 Shrivelled clickbait droppings
27 18 Goodbye to all that
28 Picture Section
29 Also by John Humphrys
30 About the Author
31 About the Publisher
LandmarksCover (#ud1f01468-19a4-5f89-bd04-8225e2e76ed1)FrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter
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Prologue (#uf192a6ac-418b-5fc5-bf50-b19d2d1196fb)
In which I answer the questions in the way I choose …
JH: Good morning. It’s ten past eight and I’m John Humphrys. With me live in the studio is … John Humphrys. It’s just been announced that he’s finally decided to leave Today after thirty-three years. Mr Humphrys, why leave it so long?
JH: Well, as you said it’s been thirty-three years and that’s—
JH: I know how long it’s been … far too long for the taste of many listeners, some might say. It’s because your style of interviewing has long passed its sell-by date, isn’t it?
JH: Well I suppose some people might say that but—
JH: You suppose some people might say that? Is it true or not?
JH: I’m not sure it’s really up to me to pass judgement on that because—
JH: What d’you mean you’re ‘not sure’! You either have a view on it or you don’t.
JH: Well I do but you keep interrupting me and—
JH: Ha! I keep interrupting you! That’s a bit rich. Isn’t that exactly what you’ve been doing to your guests on this programme for the past thirty-three years and isn’t that one of the reasons why the audience has finally had enough of you … not to mention your own bosses?
JH: I really don’t think that’s fair. After all it was only politicians I ever interrupted and only then if they weren’t answering the question.
JH: You mean if they didn’t answer YOUR questions in the way YOU chose—
JH: Again that’s not fair because—
JH: Are you seriously suggesting that you didn’t approach every political interview with your own views and if the politician didn’t happen to share those views they were toast? You did your best to cut them off at the knees.
JH: That’s nonsense. The job of the interviewer is to act as devil’s advocate … to test the politician’s argument and—
JH: And to make them look like fools and to make you look clever. It’s just an ego trip, isn’t it?
JH: No … and if that were really the case the politician would refuse to appear on Today. And mostly they don’t—
JH: Ah! You say ‘mostly’, which is a weasel word if ever I heard one. Isn’t it the case that when they do refuse it’s because they know you will deny them the chance to get their message across because all you want is a shouting match?
JH: Not at all. They’re a pretty robust bunch and I’d like to think they hide from the live microphone because they don’t want to be faced with questions that might very well embarrass them if they answer frankly and honestly.
JH: I’m sure that’s what you’d like to think but the facts suggest otherwise don’t they? And when they do try to answer frankly, you either snort with disbelief or try to ridicule them.
JH: Look, I wouldn’t deny that I get frustrated when the politician is simply refusing to answer the question, and I’m sure the listeners feel the same. It’s my job to ask the questions they want answered and if the politician refuses to engage or pulls the ‘I think what people really want to know …’ trick, then it’s true that occasionally I do let my irritation show.
JH: Nonsense! The fact is you have often been downright rude and that is simply not acceptable.
JH: Well … we agree on something at last! You’re absolutely right when you say being rude is unacceptable and I admit that I’ve been guilty of it – but not often. In my own defence I can think of only a tiny number of occasions when it’s happened and I regret it enormously – not least because it really does upset the audience. One of the biggest postbags I’ve ever had (in the days before email which shows you how long ago it happened) was for an interview in which I really did lose my temper. The audience ripped me apart afterwards and they were quite right to do so. If we invite people onto the programme we have to treat them in a civilised manner.
JH: So we’ve established that you’re not some saintly figure who always occupies the moral high ground. I suppose that’s a concession of sorts. But what I’m accusing you of goes much wider than that. Of course you have a responsibility to the audience and to the interviewee but you also have a wider responsibility. Let me suggest that when people like you treat politicians with contempt you invite us, the listeners, to do the same. And that’s bad for the whole democratic process.
JH: Once again, I agree with you. Not that we treat them with contempt, but that programmes like Today might contribute to the growing cynicism society has for politicians and the whole political process. But which would you prefer: a society in which politicians are regarded with awe and deference, or a society in which they are publicly held to account for their actions by people like me who question them when things go wrong or when we suspect they might be misleading us?
JH: Not for me to say: I’m the one who’s asking the questions this time remember! But what I’m asking you to deal with is a rather different accusation. If people like you, who’ve never been elected to so much as a seat on the local parish council, don’t show any respect to the people the nation has elected to run the country … why should anyone else?
JH: But that’s not what I’m saying. Quite the opposite. I can’t speak for my colleagues, but I have huge respect for the men and women who choose to go into politics. I hate the idea that for so many people politics has become a dirty word. Henry Kissinger once said ninety per cent of politicians give the other ten per cent a bad reputation. The wonderful American comedian Lily Tomlin put it like this: ‘Ninety-eight per cent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two per cent who get all the publicity. But then – we elected them.’ Yes, that’s funny, but it’s wrong. One of the greatest broadcasters of the last century, Edward R. Murrow, got closer to it when he chastised politicians who complained that broadcasters had turned politics into a circus. He said the circus was already there and all the broadcasters had done was show the people that not all the performers were well trained.
JH: In other words you regard political interviewing as a branch of showbiz rather than your high-flown pretension to be serving democracy!
JH: Look, I’m not going to pretend that we don’t want our listeners to keep listening and if that means we want to make the interviews entertaining as well as informative I’m not going to apologise for that. After all, the BBC’s founder Lord Reith said nearly a century ago that its purpose was to ‘inform, educate and entertain’. But you’ll note that he made ‘entertain’ the last in that list. Ask yourself: what’s the point of doing long, worthy and boring interviews if nobody is listening?
JH: Ah … so now we get to the nub of it don’t we? It’s all about ratings!
JH: Of course it’s not ‘all about ratings’ but obviously they matter …
JH: … because the higher they are the more you can get away with charging the BBC a king’s ransom to present the programme!
JH: Ah … I wondered how long it would take you to get onto this because—
JH: I trust you’re not going to deny that you’ve been paid outrageous sums of money over the years for sitting in a comfy studio asking a few questions when somebody else has probably briefed you up to the eyeballs anyway?
JH: That’s not entirely fair is it? You know perfectly well I spent years as a reporter and foreign correspondent in some very dangerous parts of the world. And anyway are you really saying the amount a presenter gets paid shouldn’t be related to the size of his or her audience? That’s rubbish!
JH: Ooh … touchy aren’t we when it comes to your own greed! Have you forgotten it’s the licence payer who foots the bill and the vast majority of them earn a tiny percentage of what you take home?
JH: Yes, I am a bit touchy on this subject and that’s partly because for various reasons I got a bit of a bum rap when BBC salaries were first disclosed back in the summer of 2017. And anyway I volunteered several pay cuts as you well know …
JH: Yes yes yes … we all know you’re a saint but I’m afraid we’ve run out of time. John Humphrys … thank you.
JH: And thank you too. And now I’m going to tell my own story without all those impertinent questions …
PART 1
Yesterday and Today (#uf192a6ac-418b-5fc5-bf50-b19d2d1196fb)
1
A childhood of smells (#uf192a6ac-418b-5fc5-bf50-b19d2d1196fb)
