In the realm of power and the press, an intriguing incident involving former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sheds light on the dynamics at play. During a visit to Modern Milkman dairy in December 2019, Johnson attempted to evade tough questioning from reporter Jonathan Swain of Good Morning Britain by hiding in an industrial fridge. This unusual encounter exemplifies the confrontational nature of British television media, which shows little deference to authority. In fact, previous prime ministers, such as Liz Truss, have suffered swift downfall due to humiliating “car crash” interviews, where politicians are taken to task live on air. One of the most memorable interviews was when journalist Eddie Mair confronted Johnson with a series of damning facts about his past actions and labeled him a “nasty piece of work.”
In contrast, American TV news hosts often pose softball questions to politicians and fail to hold them accountable when they evade answering. For instance, it took Florida Governor Ron DeSantis almost three years to acknowledge that Donald Trump had lost the 2020 presidential election. Unlike Johnson, Trump never felt the need to hide in a fridge. However, MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan recently broke the mold by persistently asking Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy the same questions until he received a satisfactory answer. Ramaswamy was caught off guard by this approach, as it differed from the usual questioning he encountered on the campaign trail.
Having lived in Britain for 12 years, I’ve noticed a stark contrast in political interviews between British and American media. British journalism approaches interviews with a skeptical mindset, constantly questioning the veracity of politicians’ statements. The late British journalist Louis Heren once encapsulated this approach by asking, “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?” On the other hand, American political interviews tend to defer to those in power, shying away from aggressive pushback and failing to hold politicians accountable for their ignorance or false claims. For instance, American interviewers have never challenged Trump to locate Afghanistan on a map.
One of the rare exceptions to this trend occurred when Australian journalist Jonathan Swan interviewed Trump during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Swan’s approach stood out as he confidently challenged Trump’s statements with facts and refused to move on when faced with blatant lies. This departure from the typical American interview script resonated with viewers, who shared Swan’s perplexed expressions and turned them into internet memes.
Interestingly, some of the most effective adversarial journalists in contemporary American media are British, such as Christiane Amanpour and Mehdi Hasan. Amanpour, who worked her way up within CNN, and Hasan, trained in Britain’s aggressive press culture, achieved success outside of the Washington, D.C. bubble.
The adversarial nature of British political interviews was not always the norm. Until the late 1950s, British media interviews resembled broadcast press releases, and accountability was left to Parliament rather than the press. The televised Prime Minister’s Questions, which takes place every Wednesday, showcases British elected officials challenging, debating, and mocking each other, scoring political points by cutting their rivals down to size. This contrasts dramatically with American governance, where elected officials deliver speeches in empty chambers for broadcast on C-SPAN.
The culture of adversarial political broadcast interviews in Britain first gained momentum in 1958 when journalist Robin Day broke tradition with his pointed questions to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. This marked a shift in the deferential approach of reporters towards powerful figures, and politicians began to expect tough questioning not only in Parliament but also on the airwaves. In 1997, Jeremy Paxman, then the host of BBC Newsnight, took combative interviewing to a new level. Paxman’s legendary interview with politician Michael Howard, where he repeatedly asked the same question 12 times in a row, has become a seminal moment in British political broadcast history. Other notable names in British adversarial journalism include Brian Walden and Andrew Neil.
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