Every now and again you hear or see an interview that sticks in your mind for all the right reasons.
It might not be the main news item of the day and it may only be given a brief spot on air, but such are the skills of the interviewee that it is the only item that really strikes a chord and makes you sit up and listen.
For me this happened yesterday. I was listening to Radio 5 Live on the way home from work and the topic moved on to sexual harassment in schools, following the publication of a report from the Women and Equalities Select Committee, and an interview with Laura Bates, the founder of the Everyday Sexism project.
I was drawn in from the start of Ms Bates's interview (1hr 20).
Her empathetic tone was supported by powerful statistics right from her first answer. Within the first few seconds we learnt that a third of teenage girls had experienced unwanted sexual touching at school.
The statistics flowed and appeared to be at the tip of her tongue and she even brought in third party figures from a Radio 5 Freedom of Information Act request to support her arguments. These were then rephrased into a really powerful sound bite: ‘That’s one rape per day being reported to police from a UK school.”
And she signposted to the listener when they needed to pay particularly close attention to what she was saying, by introducing it with ‘the report states over and over again’.
There was a clear message that a national strategy was needed to tackle this issue and that that should include compulsory sex education for primary school children.
'Keep key messages simple and don't try to cram too much in' via @mediafirstltd
But before parents of children of that age could become concerned the message was put in to context with excellent use of relatable examples – something we always talk about during our media training courses.
She said: “It’s important to say it would be age appropriate. Although we are recommending it starts from primary age that does not mean for a second we are talking about explicit pornography or anything like that with young children. It means that in exactly the same way you would teach children of five or six that you don’t hit your friends, we’d be starting to talk about things like respect, healthy relationships and that this is your body and no-one else has the right to touch it except you.”
When the conversation moved on to secondary school children and their access to online pornography Ms Bates used everyday language to ensure the message was clear. We were told it was important these children were not left to learn from ‘pretty dodgy online sources’. Exactly the sort of language a concerned parent might use and perfect for a time when that audience might be cooking the dinner or washing the dishes.
Yes, Ms Bates was not asked particularly challenging questions in the interview, but there are a couple of reasons why that happened. She closed down some potentially negative angles in her responses, such as through her defence of teachers, stating it was important they were not ‘vilified’.
Perhaps, more importantly, the content was so strong the presenter did not need raise the ante.
It’s also true that the interview was not particular long. But crucially here Ms Bates did not wait to be asked the questions she wanted to answer. She made sure she got her messages across as early as possible and backed them up with statistics and examples – textbook stuff.
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