Nick Gowing, Presenter, The Hub, BBC World News.
From 1996 to March 2000 Nik Gowing was the principal anchor for the 90 minute weekday news programme The World Today and its predecessor NewsDesk. He has been a founding presenter of BBC's Europe Direct and has been a guest anchor on both the BBC's HARDtalk and the BBC's Simpson's World. He is now a main presenter on the news programmes re-launched in April 2000 and a regular presenter for the BBC's Dateline London. Nik's appointment draws both on his extensive reporting experience over two decades in diplomacy, defence and international security, and his presentation and chairing skills. As a principal programme presenter for the channel's extended, continuous 24-hour/7-day week coverage of major crises, Nik's invaluable experience was called on throughout the Kosovo crisis from March to June 1999. He was also on air for six hours shortly after the twin towers were hit in New York City on September 11, 2001 and the coverage won the 2002 Hotbird Award. He also fronted the unfolding dra
“You can’t just go out and broadcast what you want, we have to find a common denominator, which respects the laws and regulations in every country. And that makes for a very complex matrix of responsibilities. I wouldn’t claim to represent that I know them all, but within the newsroom we have to be very sensitive to that.” Q. In your career you have covered many markets including India. What are some of the market nuances that you keep in mind before approaching a report or discussion on a market like India?
We have to think all the time about the sensitivity of the audience in every country. We also have legal obligations, because even though we are a global broadcaster, we have to respect the laws in every country- whether we are liable, misrepresented. Whichever law it is and it is not about the Indian broadcasting or broadcasting into India or British broadcasting or broadcasting into Britain, we must be aware of those, we have got to understand the nuances. For example last week when there was an author who was arrested in Singapore, we had to be careful about respecting Singaporean laws because we are being broadcast in there; obviously we have to be careful about not opening up to misrepresentation or violating the law. Similarly in Britain we are liable and Britain has one of the toughest liable regimes in any country. You can’t just go out and broadcast what you want, we have to find a common denominator, which respects the laws and regulations in every country. And that makes for a very complex matrix of responsibilities. I wouldn’t claim to represent that I know them all, but within the newsroom we have to be very sensitive to that.
Q. Do you watch national news channels in India? Is there any that stands out?
I don’t live here and so there is a limit to what I can watch. It would be wrong for me to say anything.
Q. As an anchor there have been various occasions in which you have to moderate discussions of people from varied backgrounds. What are your personal do’s and don’ts to ensure that you get the best out of the discussions and your speakers?
I host a lot of BBC world debates and what I like to say is that what you have got to do in a discussion is to have a line. You got to have a line where there is natural tension and that it wouldn’t appear so on television when you are watching the programme. That is a lot of analysis beforehand to get the right chemistry; working through the personalities of those you want to invite and making a decision of who not to invite because even if they are correctly qualified, you need to avoid friction and tension, it is not to have a battle on air, that is not the issue. The main idea is to air the issues. And that means you got to have a vibrant, slightly tense relationship among those you have invited on to the programme, because if you have got one person of one persuasion and one person of another persuasion, you want to understand where the differences are, you don’t want them to agree with each other and so that needs a skill. It is a necessity and it always works and that is the ambition. I was holding a debate 10 days back in Paris about the shortage of skills and the need of migration in the world to allow more skilled people to fill jobs. We had a very vibrant debate amongst people who we knew in advance- would disagree with each other. A week, 10 days earlier in Singapore, we did another debate where it was difficult to get people to disagree with each other, they had diverging opinions but that doesn’t mean there was a disagreement. So, human psychology and being very tough and self disciplined about the editorial options is critical to make a programme work. If it works people accept it as ok if it doesn’t work people then say that the programme is a bit boring or flat and dry. But you have to accept that you always can’t always have a perfect programme.
Q. Tell us something about your show ‘The Hub’ what goes behind preparing for a show like that?
Well of first of all we have enormous BBC news gathering. But the idea of The Hub is that it is where things happen and come together- in a hub. Like a USB hub or a roundabout hub, it was my idea to call it ‘The Hub’. It gives people a sense and it doesn’t translate very easily to some languages actually. There is no word like ‘The Hub’ in Germany; it is rather some long description of something which is a Hub, and the same happens in French. So a hub can be an airport hub, a traffic hub, a bus hub, a metro hub, a USB hub. It is where things come together, so psychologically it gives the right impression that come and join me in the hub and as I say that in the beginning of the programme, we give you all the news you need to know on The Hub. When I was in Poland after the president’s plane crashed in Russia and 95 other people were killed then, people were coming upto me in Polish and English. I was used to working in Poland. What I don’t have yet is an inflatable hub or you can’t exactly put hub on a plane and bring it to Delhi. So it is the spirit of the hub the fact that I am here, the fact that the BBC operation is here.
Q. There have been allegations that anything and everything is breaking news on Indian news channels. Do you think that has changed over the years?
It is a fact and that is what every channel says is happening. If it is happening and it is news- it is breaking news- which I suppose is the technical term for it. If it is new and it is happening and you are giving it for the first time- it is breaking news. Certainly where I work at the BBC world news, we tend to be more calibrated in the way we use that. Not if just something, which is inconsequential, has happened that tends to devalue the expectations of the phrase- ‘breaking news’.
Q. You have worked with the BBC for a very long time, what is it like to work for the BBC which among other things is also known for a rigid work style?
I don’t think it is rigid at all. I feel it is extremely multi dimensional and open to take risks. I don’t know what rigid means, I certainly don’t get that feeling. We have editorial discipline which ensures what we put on air is correct, it is being checked and it’s been through a process- which means that we are satisfied with what we are saying. That is not rigid though. It is like getting into a car, you know you got to hold the steering wheel and put the clutch down and change gears and you got to do it in a certain order, but you can do it very quickly. I reject the idea that we are rigid, we are dynamic and we are embracing the realities of the market and that is not being rigid at all.
Q. You have been a guest anchor on BBC’s show Hardtalk. What goes behind preparing for a show like that?
A lot of research. I will give you the same answers as what I have given for preparing for a debate you have to do an enormous amount of work and be prepared to be assertive and be ready to put the other side of the argument. It is the same principle of getting the most out of people and get people to reveal as much as possible.
Q. As a market observer, what advice do you have for the Indian media?
I don’t think I am going to come to India and give the Indian media any advice- because many of the channels are doing fantastically well. I know there are cost and profit pressures on some of them, but it is always exciting and you feel there is an aggressive market out there. And every channel, including us, learns from competitors. What the Indian channels have done is- created a new vibrancy and new excitement, and that is what we try to reflect as well. But it is still a market which is growing and maturing in India. We are growing and maturing as well we are all learning all the time whichever channel we are on.
Q. Please tell us something about your experience of working in India?
I have been coming to India now for 23- 24 years and I still remember coming here back in late 80’s on my way to Afghanistan when it was very difficult to get the television equipment into the airport. It was very difficult to get visas in those days. And I see very dynamic and very exciting media environment and information space when you have got 150 million new mobile phones in a year, broadband and wifi. You don’t get stopped at the airport to get the equipment in and many people have got smart phones, mobile phones, PDA’s, Laptops, ipads now. I remember the argument several years ago when the only broadband supplier was BSNL and it was very expensive and it seemed to be right to have a monopoly on broadband condition. The fact remains that now I can interview someone from London who is sitting in their residence somewhere here in Delhi and I can do it by their laptop on a USB dongle. I have been in India for long enough to realise for your generation, I suspect you take it for granted, but it has been a fantastic change in the information and media environment which is very exciting. And as far as BBC is concerned, we are in competition with 50 other news channels. That is fantastic and that is what competition and the popularising of media should be about. And when you look at the newspaper environment in which, forgive me if I am wrong, 86 million newspapers are released everyday or sold every day and the number is going up, many parts of the world it is going down that shows how exciting it is.
