Radio 4 Media Show presenter Steve Hewlett is the winner of the 2011 Nick Clarke Award for the best broadcast interview of the year.
He beat seven other contenders – including Radio 4 colleagues Eddie Mair and Jon Manel – for his interview earlier this year with the former chair of the Press Complaints Commission during the hacking scandal.
The interview with Lady Peta Buscombe aired in February at a time when all the issues of the affair were complex and the situation changing on a daily basis.
The judges said: “Steve’s live interview, against the clock, demonstrated all the features essential to any conducted in the Nick Clarke tradition. It was challenging, well argued, well structured, well informed, impartial and courteous. The interview was broadcast when the PCC chair was under considerable pressure. Her posture was, understandably, defensive. Steve’s polite insistence, bringing into play his own background knowledge and research, enabled him to take the listener with him beneath that posture.”
The Nick Clarke Award is made in honour of former Radio 4 World At One presenter Nick Clarke, who died from cancer in 2006. This is the fourth year of the award – previous winners include 5 Live’s Victoria Derbyshire and crime writer PD James who interviewed BBC Director General Mark Thompson while guest editor of the Today Programme.
You can listen to Steve Hewlett’s interview in full here.
Posted on Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 3:52 pm by RadioToday UK