I am about to break an unwritten rule of political etiquette. I am going to write in defence of journalists.
For the past six months I have chaired a panel which advises the London Assembly about London weighting-the extra pay you get for working in the capital if your job is in the public sector. It's a mess, and last October we began to search for a rational approach. In June this year, we reported that London weighting should be set in accordance with the extra pay people in the private sector get-on average, 37 per cent of national salary for working in inner London, or 33 per cent if you exclude the effect of the City.
Publicity for our enquiry was aided hugely by a few strikes on the subject, which moved us up the news agenda. Our "launch" last November was a typical media event. I turned up at Capital Radio at 5.30am, where they wanted soundbites to use through the day. They are good at getting them. It's like a visit to the dentist: have a soundbite extracted and a good rinse afterwards.
The BBC was more testing. They decided to lead the London bulletins with pictures of old strikes about London weighting. At the studio I was grilled off-camera for five minutes by the gimlet-eyed Emily Maitlis. That evening I learned the first lesson of radio and television journalism. It is conducted by highly intelligent people who understand the issues quickly and then slash them ruthlessly to fit their news agenda. They wanted me on camera with a small midwife so, to make us the same height, we ended up perched on slippery stools, occupied mostly with not falling off. The six o'clock bulletin carried a reasonable discussion of the issues but by ten o'clock it had been reduced to the line that London weighting wouldn't help people buy houses.
The only newspapers to cover the launch were the Guardian, which carried a long piece in their "Office Hours" section and, rather to my surprise, the FT, which simply announced it.
When we came to deliver our report in June this year, the media coverage was more organised. We had a warm-up event for interested parties then, two days later, the press release, with all the figures, embargoed until two days after that. Everyone respected the embargo, probably because they didn't regard London weighting as terribly interesting.
I take my hat off to Kevin Brown at the FT and James Meikle at the Guardian who, from a standing start, understood the complexities and managed to make the story interesting, even though they didn't have the figures we would be recommending. Previously, I had the impression that most journalists were lazy or unscrupulous, or both. I told James Meikle that he had restored my faith in journalism, and I meant it.
We started the main event with a radio piece and I was completely floored by a question. "What are you calling for?" asked the reporter. After a long pause, I said, "I thought you were ringing me." Then it clicked: our press release said we were calling for a shake up in public sector pay.
Next came the television interviews in Parliament Square. Now I know why MPs always look slightly rattled when questioned there. First, they have had to dodge traffic because there is no pedestrian crossing to the green; second, the camera crew will have just chased off banner-wielding hunt protestors (or in my case the South Wold Hunt). I asked Karl Mercer from the BBC whether he had read the report. He just stared at me. I asked him if he had looked at the pictures. His eyes narrowed. I thought I had better save any further wisecracks until after the interview.
With ITV just down the road (can't have the same background, you know) the young woman interviewing me asked if Karl had asked anything interesting, adding one of his questions to her list. I was beginning to pick up the rules. If the interviewers are wearing cords or jeans, they aren't going to be on camera. They will just cut and use your answers rather than carrying the whole interview. So, make each answer a soundbite. It's when they are dressed up that you need to worry-dialogue may be involved. My interviews were made a little more tricky by my daughter, who has just finished her training as a broadcast journalist, text-messaging me to get ITV to give her a job.
Coverage on the day itself was good in the Guardian and FT. Nothing in the Times or Telegraph-too public sector for them, I fancy. Finally, it was back to the dentist at Capital Radio. Even with repeats, the entire coverage took less than 15 minutes, so I've still got some fame time to come. You could see the news caravan preparing to move on, even as they were doing the interviews, looking past you to the next story. At Capital, I was nearly crowded out by a farmer from Australia who had watched a trans-world balloonist land.
When I talked to the editor of Prospect about this piece, he was preparing to interview the prime minister. "What are you going to ask him?" "Oh, you know, Afghanistan, Iraq, America, Europe." "How about something that touches people's lives here? How about London weighting?" I don't think so.
