Memorable career-related incidents so far

In no particular order:

1) Presenting a paper on media outreach to a conference of rocket scientists at the 2nd Appleton Space Conference at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory alongside (and at the behest of) Alex James from Blur.

2) Being asked to cover for Richard Bacon whilst he was off on honeymoon. Three weeks straight presenting on 5 live - everything I had been working towards for 10 years of my career. Shame it didn't lead to anything more regular.

3) Interviewing Nick Cave at the premiere of The Proposition. You should never meet your heroes, but he was everything I wanted him to be - self-possessed, wary, polite, funny and swaying in a charmingly deranged way.

4) Working as a runner on Ricky Gervais' show on Xfm before The Office was even thought of. Nine months of telling people the man was a comedy genius and then 3 years later, everyone suddenly agreeing.

5) Being paid to watch Radiohead and Morrissey at the V Festival in Chelmsford in 2006. Also blagging tickets to see the Pixies in Chelmsford in 2004. Still probably my favourite ever gig.

6) Being asked if I wanted to start reporting for London Tonight and subsequently, Five News, in the space of 4 months.

7) Being elected Chair of the Student Radio Association and persuading Matthew Bannister to launch the Radio 1 Student Radio Awards.

8) Being invited by The Queen to a "reception for the media and arts" at Windsor Castle in 1999 (presumably because I was Chair of the SRA, but I never found out how or why). I arrived on the train with George Martin and walked up to the castle two yards behind him too tongue-tied to speak.

This theme continued as I found myself in close proximity to Dawn French, Michael Caine, Joanna Lumley, Joan Collins, Shirley Bassey, Wendy Richards and Kenneth Branagh, among others.

Eventually rescued from staring at the wall by Thomas Prag - a radio industry exec who introduced me to other radio execs Trevor Dann and Richard Park. As they were being polite to me, we were interrupted by a nice middle-aged lady who chatted to us for bit about Radio 4 and then disappeared. Turns out it was Princess Alexandra.

As I was leaving I walked through the newly-restored St George's Chapel and turned around for one last look. Booker Prize winner Ben Okri clapped me on the shoulder and said "That's right - take it all in. What a night." before wandering off, chuckling to himself.

8) Being asked if I wanted a job in London by PR and music mogul Shabs Jobanputra. My first real, and best ever boss (except, of course, for my current ones) and an absolute visionary.

9) Hanging around with a Radio 1 microphone "backstage" at a North London venue whilst waiting for a Pete Doherty interview. After watching various people fiddling with small wraps of silver paper, Mr Doherty staggered out of the toilet and I was granted an audience. He told me he was leaving The Libertines for good, which was news to The Libertines. Hard to believe now that this was a big story at the time.

10) Watching Harry Hill and Al Murray's Pub Internationale gig at the Neptune theatre in Liverpool, interviewing them backstage for my student radio station and then taking them to meet their friends at the Casablancas night club, as I was the only person present who knew where it was. I interviewed Al Murray at the This Morning studios several years later and he still remembered how dodgy Casablancas was.

11) Pitching and producing a well-received London Tonight piece by Bad Science columnist Ben Goldacre on the MMR vaccine.

12) In the first few days of working at Television Centre in 2001 Paul Weller politely held a door open for me. Never more in my life have I more felt like Wayne and Garth backstage at an Aerosmith gig.

13) Staging a guerilla gig with Mercury-nominated ace violinist Seth Lakeman at Glastonbury. We actually pulled together a decent-sized crowd and it seemed to generally enhance the Glastonbury experience for everyone present. And we got a decent TV news package out of it.

14) Approaching John Barnes at the height of his godlike powers (alright they were slightly on the wane) in a bar in Liverpool and persuading him to promise to drop by our student radio station and do an interview on an anti-racism campaign he was fronting. 2 days later, bless him, he turned up.

15) Watching a band called Coldplay perform second on the bill to 200 people above a pub in Oxford. To be fair the secret was already out by that stage, but it still felt like we were witnessing the start of something big.

16) Writing a sitcom called "Touched" with Bex Palmer. It took weeks. Feedback from BBC broadly supportive, changes suggested, none made. Sitcom now in attic.

Civilians and Muggles

It was apparently Liz Hurley who let the cat out of the bag when she revealed the contempt celebrities have for "ordinary" people by calling them "civilians". I couldn't find the direct quote on google, which suggests it might be like the apocryphal Peter Mandelson "avocado mousse" line. Nonetheless, she's never denied it.

The term is in current usage. Matt Damon dropped it into an MSNBC interview, and the veteran DJ and remixer Arthur Baker used it when I interviewed him at Creamfields in 2004 when talking about a hotel for DJs and performers he was hoping to open in Brixton that "wouldn't be for civilians".

There is now a better one doing the rounds on the panto/musical theatre/holiday park entertainment troupe circuit. The new term for civilian is Muggle.

Lifted, of course, straight from Harry Potter, it describes someone who isn't touched by the magic of showbiz, an ordinary person, a Muggle.

I found this out yesterday, in conversation with a comedian friend.

Me: "Are you still seeing that girl you really liked, the legal secretary?"
Him: "No, she dumped me."
Me: "You're kidding."
Him: "I know, dumped by a f****** Muggle."

That's what they call us, you, the paying public. I asked where he heard the term "Muggle" first.

Him: "The Aussie actress I did panto with. She'd finished with her boyfriend, so I asked her who she had her eye on next. She said 'No one, really. I might just go and f*** some random Muggle.'"

Magic.

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Ben Goldacre on ITV1's London Tonight

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfheO9H8CD4

Broadcast on 9 Mar 2009 Written and presented by Dr Ben Goldacre Produced by Nick Wallis

Nick Wallis's blog on The Making Of this piece here. Comments welcome.

Bad Science the Movie on London Tonight

That was exhausting. I blogged about the back story to this here. Having done so I realised it might make a good piece for London Tonight.

After all, the broadcast was made on a London radio station and immunisation rates for the MMR vaccine in London have fallen from around 90% to around 50% in a few short years. It's therefore a public health issue, especially relevant to Londoners.

The day after I wrote the blog piece I pitched it to Stuart Thomas, the editor at London Tonight. This would be an authored television package, which in broadcast news-speak means an opinion piece presented by a non-reporter. Stuart liked the idea and commissioned it.

I emailed Ben Goldacre (seen here working hard in ITV's media lounge at Gray's Inn Road) and got a positive response. After a long chat on the phone we agreed a filming date (not easy when dealing with a full-time NHS doctor who has a very healthy journalism career already) and set about finding the elements.

The main people to try and get involved were Jeni Barnett and/or her employers LBC (the radio station who effectively sparked the story when they got their lawyers onto Ben) and Norman Lamb, the MP who felt the issue was important enough to put down an early day motion in the house of commons.

I got the planning desk to call Norman Lamb's office and was delighted to find he was available on the day we were filming. I also emailed Jonathan Richards, the big cheese at LBC to see if Jeni were available to be interviewed by Ben, or failing that, if Jonathan would speak to Ben.

Jonathan was courteous, but was not prepared to put anyone up for interview. I can see why he didn't (I think they just want this story to go away now), but it would have made fascinating viewing if he had.

Incidentally both Ben himself and Jeni's agent Robert told me that Jonathan had invited Ben onto Jeni's programme to discuss MMR, but Ben has so far refused. Again I think I can see why.

The context of any debate (ie the medium, the media) is just as important to the protagonists as the content. The internet has democratised the delivery of a point of view to the extent that a successful blogger can build a significant powerbase that allows them to get their message across without having to jump at every airtime opportunity that comes their way.

If you believe the media is biased then why wouldn't you do everything you can to control the medium through which you attempt to get your message? I  believe the personal is political, and therefore every action and utterance anyone ever makes has an inherent bias - the best we can do is to monitor and if necessary redress how people in the supposedly neutral media manifest their biases, especially the unconscious ones. It's an impossible task, as it's human behaviour. But that's yer paradox.

Jonathan said he would provide us with a statement via the LBC press office, which I was grateful for. Like all my dealings with LBC on this story the press officer I spoke to was as friendly and helpful as I could expect him to be.

Having worked out what we were and weren't going to get from the filming I set about drafting a script. After doing so I got involved in a near-stand up row with another reporter in the newsroom who revealed her dislike of Ben ("too superficial" I think she claimed, before I directed her to his blog, which she hadn't read) and trotted out similar lines to many of the things Jeni said in her broadcast, adding words to the effect that:

a) double-blind scientific testing cannot be trusted
b) every child is different and no one can prove that the MMR jab hasn't given children autism
c) how can a perfectly healthy child have the jab, suddenly regress horribly into autism and the two events not be related?

I was gobsmacked. Anyway the script went to Ben three days before filming. When I hadn't got anything back 48 hours later I was starting to get jumpy. Thankfully, on the night before we were due to meet, Ben sent back his thoughts.

Working off my original template his script was a) better than mine and b) editorially in the same ballpark, which was a considerable relief.

He also didn't lay down any pre-conditions for script-lines or filming, which was a godsend as it meant we could at least attempt to work together.

 Filming was exhausting. We started at 12.45pm on Thursday outside the Millbank media centre and finished some time past 7pm, working right through. Norman Lamb met us first and Ben arrived soon after in a taxi. We got the interview filmed with Norman and then went into some set up shots before saying goodbye. It was the first time Ben and Norman had met and there was some polite mutual respect going on.

I stayed in the background, checking Gemma had her shots whilst Ben and Norman chatted. Then we had to film the multiple pieces to camera (PTCs) that made up the bulk of the rest of the piece. For these we stuck closely to the script, filming in Soho and Leicester Square before making our way back to Gray's Inn Road to film the interior sequences.

Ben is a natural with a very expressive face and an ability to do most of his pieces to camera first time of asking. Not that they were in the can first time of asking as there was always something to discuss, re-do and improve, whether it was a technical change, script suggestion or an interruption beyond our control like background noise.

Whilst also trying to get the piece done I was trying to arrange filming for the following day on a completely different story in Hackney and trying to get the lawyer to tell me if anything about the latest version of the script needed radical surgery, as we only had Ben and his voice for the rest of the afternoon.

Thankfully the lawyer was happy and I could let Ben go knowing we were basically covered. Ben recorded some track and a bong (only after being reminded to do so by a colleague as we were just about to say goodbye) and we went our separate ways. To cut a long story short the piece got to air the following Monday, but not before a lot more lawyering, more communication between myself and LBC, myself and Jeni's agent and a final referral to a different ITN lawyer who insisisted on removing what I thought was a completely innocuous section regarding, er, radioactive paedophiles.

I knew this would upset Ben as he had been looking forward to saying radioactive paedophiles on television. I texted him to warn him and received the message:

"This is a massive fail." I know Ben, I know...

I got lots of props in the debrief for the story, and for my other piece (the one I was trying to organise) which led the programme, although by that stage I was too completely knackered and confused by working on two stories at once (especially as we neared TX) to point out that both pieces only got there because of a long list of people who helped out massively. Stuart, Faye, Becky, Tracey, Toby, Hannah, Nicolette, Gemma, Bill, Sophia, Nigel, Ken, Tobias, John, Glenn and of course the good doctor himself: thank you. I'll post the link to the relevant video as soon as I know where it is.

Bad Science and LBC

Ben Goldacre (@bengoldacre) is someone I first became aware of through his excellent Guardian column, which I used to read when I picked up a copy of the newspaper.

Ben's central belief (explained here more fully) is that newsrooms are effectively run by clueless humanities graduates who wouldn't know how to question the scientific veracity of the nutritional claims on the side of a cereal packet.

Ben decided to take a stand when he realised that uninformed media reporting was actively damaging public debate over important scientific issues.

This had three main effects:

1) The degrading of the reputation of scientists and the practice of science (and it is thanks to science your car works, your cancer is cured and you are reading this blog post. It's not because of religion, or crystals).

2) The growth industry of quacks, alternative healers and pseudo-scientists who spout stuff that sounds right, provide a few of their own case studies and suddenly find themselves on television making fortunes from credulous members of the public.

3) The real danger to individual lives a growing ignorance of science can foster, particularly when making decisions about things like medical care and immunisation.

Unfortunately, whilst science in its purest form can do incredible things, lead to astounding discoveries and regularly changes our lives for the better, it has too often been used as a business tool by those who only wish to see scientific progress if it grows markets and makes profits. When this works together for the benefit of humanity it is a truly wondrous thing.

When it is misappropriated to grow market share, it sucks (read this blog entry on pharmaceutical happy drugs (SSRIs) by a traumatised user). But the swing against the received wisdom of science in recent decades has been horrendous.

All sorts of extraordinary hippy shit has not only been given credence by its media exposure, but it started gaining a toe-hold amongst politicians and academics who gave it the credibility it craves. This week's Private Eye quotes course notes from a University of Westminster undergraduate module on vibrational medicine which reveals students are taught the following "[amethyst] emits high yin energy so transmuting lower energies and clearing and aligning energy disturbances at all levels of being".

The article is reprinted on the excellent Improbable Science website which is a prime example of scientists belatedly, and at last successfully, taking the fight to the quacks.

So Ben Goldacre decided to draw a line in the sand. Adopting the cunning guise of the very humanities graduates he aims to expose (despite being a practising NHS doctor and one time visiting researcher in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Milan), Ben comes across like an affable, articulate and determinedly bemused debunker of pseudo-science.

He writes well, he speaks engagingly and he has, I think, been at the forefront of the recent willingness in the media to think a lot harder about repeating claims that don't have any peer-reviewed scientific evidence to back them up.

Knowing this makes it easier to understand Ben's reaction to a recent broadcast by Jeni Barnett on the London commercial talk radio station LBC.

I first found out about it in the popbitch weekly email, and I have pasted the relevant section from that weekly email below:

 *****************************************
LBC bloke throws toys out of pram

Guardian Bad Science columnist, Dr Ben Goldacre, recently blogged about an LBC show by Jeni Barnett. Unimpressed by what she was saying about MMR, Goldacre posted up the audio of the show so that his readers could judge it for themselves. LBC got the legal heavies on to him about it. The result? A small story became a huge to-do on the web, newspapers picked up on it and hundreds of blogs around the world took up the story, transcribed Barnett's interview, played the audio etc. One of the station's top execs then rang Goldacre to vent, telling him: "You were on my list of people to contact. I was thinking of giving you your own show... but you've RUINED THAT NOW." Needless to say, we're sure Dr Ben must be heart-broken.

***********************************************

To read Ben's perspective on LBC's legal action take a look at this. To read Ben's version of the above exchange click here and go to the bottom of the entry, but in reality it's an unimportant sideshow, so please don't do it until you've read the whole story.

In short, Ben has played a blinder. He is very much the little guy, the gifted amateur with little other than a) a solid reputation b) a total understanding of the facts c) lots of very bright, very tech-savvy, very influential and opinionated followers.

As things stand this is far from over. Dr Ben's latest entry suggests things might escalate. Questions are being asked in The House, you know.

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Mucking about in the snow again

Long day. Actually too tedious to get into, other than the fact we got to get in the back of a cop car with the blues and twos flashing. Top speeds in the slush. In Welwyn Garden City. Now that's glamour.

  I had to get out of the car at one stage so Gemma the Top Camera Lady could get some shots from the back seat, so they dropped me off at a Porsche dealership.

I got out of the squad car in the car park in front of this two story glass and steel structure. The police car had blacked out windows so the staff inside couldn't see Gemma or the cops. So all they saw was a police car with sirens blaring coming to a halt in their car park and a man wearing a black longcoat get out of the back seat and come striding towards them.

"I need two of your fastest 911s," I said to the salesman. "It's a matter of national security."

I didn't really, but I felt like I ought to say something, so I explained what was going on.

"Oh," said the salesman, looking disappointed, "I thought you were a customer."

They offered me a coffee. I got the full Porsche dealership experience (Sky News, every single daily paper, a leather banquette and a flirtatious receptionist) without having to shell out for a Porsche.

£30,000 for a new entry level Boxter, if you're interested.

Anyway we got the job done and met up with veteran reporter (hee hee) Marcus Powell and the sat truck in the car park of the Red Lion, Ayot Green.

Marcus n' me

Marcus and his crew filed his report first and went to the pub, whilst I slaved over my script in the truck.

Afterwards I rewarded myself with a pint of ginger beer shandy. Then we had a snowball fight and went home.

Going round Tony Benn's house

Tony Benn is something of a legendary figure in British politics - I don't know how much of his Wikipedia entry is true, but his status as a National Treasure (words often preceded by the phrase "I don't agree with a single one of his policies, but...") is beyond doubt.

We filmed him for a comment on street protests and whether they're causing too much disruption in London. He lives on a main road in a well-to-do part of West London.

The laminated sign on the front door of his 4 story townhouse said, "Please use the downstairs entrance", so we trooped down some dilapidated stairs to be confronted with another laminated sign attached to the door-knocker: "The door is open, please come in".

We knocked and went in (bringing the sign with us), and there was the man himself. I've met Tony Benn before, when he came into the studio to discuss something or other on a BBC Radio 5 live show I was presenting, but to meet someone in the context of their own home (especially a living legend) changes the game entirely.

  Knowing of his privileged upbringing, I expected a tastefully furnished mansion populated by various family members, and staff, including a devoted housekeeper who would spend her time fussing over him and an earnest young man acting as his secretary/PR wallah.

But no, we were welcomed by a sprightly 84 year old, working in what frankly looked like conditions of genteel, and slightly eccentric poverty. The office he directed us into to set up the interview was cold and damp (which he apologised for).

Whilst he was busying himself elsewhere and the cameraman did his lighting, I had a good look round.

One wall of the office was wholly taken up by his own writings and recordings - file after file of the Benn diaries and audio CDs. Below them was a vinyl-tablecloth-covered desk holding two switched-off TVs which were connected to VHS recorders. In the corner of the room was a bookshelf holding a good chunk of leather-bound books, including a few of his own - the backdrop for the interview as "suggested" (ie directed) by him.

On the desk beneath the window was a functioning Amstrad email/phone thing. This appeared to be the most advanced technology in the room - there was no computer present. The shabby mantelpiece had a 25 year old framed commons sketch above it - Margaret Thatcher was at the despatch box and every MP's features had been caricatured.

Alarmingly, on its side, on the mantelpiece itself, was a whole, iced, and clearly ancient cake. It looked like it had been there years, and had various tapes and books packed around it - with what looked like a large decoration from the cake propped up on one of the books. It would be a disservice to the vitality of the place to draw comparisons with the living habits of Steptoe and Miss Havisham, but it is potentially going that way. Still, at the age of 84 you're hardly going to give two hoots are you? And I've been in considerably worse bachelor pads. Men just don't clean up much when left to their own devices.

By far the most impressive part of the whole package was Benn himself. Still intellectually fiery, argumentative and grippingly lucid he answered every question cleverly and persuasively. He wore a lapel microphone for us and another connected to an audio cassette machine. "I hope you don't mind." he said as he pressed record "I'm an archivist." I don't mind my interview being in the Benn archive one bit...

Delightfully uninterested in doing set up shots, he was more than happy to pose for a photo (see below) and we had a chat about my BlackBerry. I showed him my iPod touch, and said he'd probably get on better with an iPhone. He was worried about switching from Orange and having to change his number. I said I was pretty sure it was a painless process nowadays.

We chatted about progress - how when his father was born there were no cars at all, when he was born no television and women still didn't have the vote, when his son was born no computers, when I was born, no mobile phones and when his granddaughter was born - no internet. He was minister for technology in the 60s I think and has a genuine interest in that sort of thing, even if he doesn't quite buy into it himself.

  I have a theory that to continue doing something over a period of time, provided it's done for the right reasons, has a moral value to it, no matter the impact it makes on the world, and I think that is why we celebrate people like Tony Benn (you could put him in the same bracket as John Peel).

He's dedicated his life to politics, and has showed us, by example, the value of sticking to what you believe in.

Even the cameraman was impressed.

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