Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Behind the Man behind the Headlines: An Interview with Brian GarrettAuthor(s): Brian GarrettSource: Fortnight, No. 241 (Jun. 23 - Jul. 6, 1986), pp. 13-14Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25550900 .

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BEHIND THE MAN BEHIND THE HEADLINES

An Interview with Brian Garrett When Brian Garrett presented his first edition of

'Behind the Headlines' more than 18 months ago, the programme examined Northern Ireland's im

age in the national and internation media. Some 70 shows later, the same theme was discussed on

what was to be his last appearance on the highly

regarded Radio Ulster public affairs programme.

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Brian Garrett

When 'Behind the Headlines' began, your appointment was con

sidered somewhat controversial. Why do you think that was?

I think it was controversial for two reasons. Firstly I had been chairman of a political party myself in the past. I had been chair

man of the Northern Ireland Labour Party in the mid-70's which was then an important party?no longer sadly?and that meant

one had to question essentially whether or not this could be a fair

interviewer. I declared my hand at the start to the BBC and indicated to the then head of radio that I had been a chairman of a

political party, that I did have views, that I wouldn't mask those views but that I didn't, however, intend to promote them. And

happily I must say, and surprisingly to me, the BBC accepted that, in what is afterall a delicate situation in Ulster. The great strength

of it was that I had made enough contacts in all political parties to have their support and no one ever questioned that.

You had a reputation as a probing interviewer. Did your training as

a lawyer work to your advantage in this respect?

Everyone commented on this programme that the new thing about it was the nature of questioning. I think that was right. People thought that it was inevitable because one was a lawyer, one was questioning that way. I'm not so sure that's right. Lawyers want to win arguments in courts and in the early months of

interviewing I found that I wanted to win the arguments on radio. I wasn't there to present, I was in there wanting to win so I had to

abandon that which was a very basic principle for a lawyer. The best case in this instance was to let the people present themselves

and therefore I tried to learn not to be combative but to be

vigorous in the interviewing. For instance if people gave me very long answers and I realised they were being evasive?and I was a

politician afterall and I could spot them a mile away?then I would

just say, "it's a very long answer but please I don't understand

His rapid departure from Broadcasting House last

month has turned out to be as controversial as the

show itself?a show that probed behind the head

lines and made news as well. Here, Brian Garrett, Belfast lawyer and former chairman of the North

ern Ireland Labour party talks about the North's

political leaders, censorship and broadcasting.

what you just said." And then this became a sort of calling card of the programme. People would say it was a wonderful programme

because it did this and that but it didn't really. I was just asking the

questions that anyone would have asked. But perhaps the legal training was advantageous in that one could allow people to exude

and then give the upper cut as it were in the questioning. I never

intended to knock the people out though. I only wanted to get at the issues?maybe a little closer than other interviewers do.

It was often a newsworthy programme since it not only probed behind the headlines it also made headlines. One of the more dramatic examples of this was the interview with Gerry Adams and

John Hume when the SDLP leader in refusing an offer of talks on

pan-nationalist issues appeared to get himself on a hook by saying he would only talk to the IRA Army Council. Did you realise at the

time, the implications of what John Hume had said?

It had a profound impact. It was live and there had been no discussion beforehand between myself and John Hume and Gerry

Adams except as to the issue we were dealing with and the issue

was?who leads the nationalist community? And there were great doubts at the time about what the comparative strengths of the

two parties were. So I did expect an unveiling of the different

positions. It was a very vigorous argument and I don't go for

winners or losers but it was quite clear to me at the end that Gerry Adams did have something left in his arsenal as it were, a bad term

to use perhaps. I was of course dumbfounded. I knew its impact, we had about 4 minutes to go so I re-phrased the issue twice in the

hope that John Hume wouldn't answer it by reflex. He answered it

3 times rather than twice the same way and I walked out extra

ordinarily bemused. There was no question, it was not pre-re hearsed it was all quite genuine, it was all reflex and I knew

immediately that it was going to be enormously newsworthy. But

what I didn't know was that within 20 minutes there would be a telex from the Republican headquarters inviting John Hume to a

meeting with the IRA. It wasn't for me to advise him whether that was right or not. We knew we were on to a big one and about an

hour later the Bradford Recorder or some other newspaper rang

asking me where was I going to chair the meeting between the IRA and John Jume. I felt I had to scotch this one. That was an

important interview but I don't think it was the most important one. Probably the most important one was the time we got the 4

leaders together on New Year's Day 1985 and I invited them to

play a Christmas game which was to imagine that they were the other men, place themselves in the other man's shoes and identify from that position what their respective strengths were. It was

quite funny to listen to John Hume talking to Ian Paisley as Ian

Paisley and so on. the idea was to use a technique, which seemed

to me to be an obvious technique. I always used to sit at home

listening to people and say, "oh, cut it out, what would you do if

you were born him"? It seems to me you can play that game on

radio and it worked. They were all perfectly reasonable to each

other and at one point John Cushnahan said it was time to get their diaries out for a meeting and they all got their diaries out, physic ally. Two weeks later I'm afraid the diaries were put away again because John Hume had just agreed to meet the IRA and that was the end of that.

What were the other highlights of the programme for you?

Other things which I think were important on the programme - we

continued overleaf

Fortnight23rd June 1986 13

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Garrett interview continued from page 13

had the announcement on the programme of the Unionist reaction

to and their tactics about the Hillsborough Agreement. The form

ation of the Ulster Workers Strike Committee was also announced

on the programme, it had not been announced before. And then

of course, more recently, at this sort of inter-locking of the Gov

ernment's position through torn King and the two Unionist

leaders, we had the whole programme devoted to them and we

thought we had got talks about talks. Mr. King thought he had talks about talks too and he referred to this on his recent Washing ton tour. It was nice to be able to do this, to see this kind of ripple but it would be immodest to say that it was always because of the

programme. What it seemed to me to prove was that there was an

enormous need for such a vehicle and not just one programme, that there was a need for imaginative broadcasting perhaps an

independent mind, not just mine and thirdly a need for time to

develop ideas rather than go through these tired images. And I'm

afraid I took the view, again perhaps wrongly, that local broad

casting is absolutely appalling at the moment. It does great injust ice to the whole province and I think it certainly exacerbates the

problem.

Why do you call it appalling?

It's just get them into a studio, set them up and let them go. It's this

is the old tired issue, let's have it out again. It's rocking around the

clock stuff. It never actually sets out with a theme and never gets someone into the position of saying give us a little more about how

you got there, how can you get off that hook. The interviewing is never done as if the people have a dilemma as well. It's just a sheer

forward blast, sometimes with a counter-blast, if you set people up to argue with one another. It's just totally unimaginative. And that

has nothing to do with good broadcasting skills, good interviewing skills, it's really that most of the formats are wrong. And I'm afraid

so long as that's the case, then so long it will be the case as well that

the important programmes about Northern Ireland, particularly in television, will be network programmes... the Brass Tacks

programmes, the Peter Jay programmes. It will never be a pro

gramme going from these shores.

Your departure from the programme has received a fair amount of

publicity. What's the background to that?

I suppose the programme had to come to an end like all good and

bad things. I didn't think it was going to come to an end that

quickly. I thought we'd have another year in it. There had been a

note in one of the Sunday newspapers that the programme might be axed and then a listener rang me to say that he had written,

having seen this report, to the BBC and he read over the reply which said that it was true my services were being "dispensed with". I think the BBC is perfectly entitled to get rid of anybody they ike but I would have thought that out of courtesy, they ought to have mentioned it to the people involved in the programme.

On your last programme Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien criticised

James Hawthorne, the controUer of BBC Northern Ireland for

allowing interviews with Republican spokesmen and others who

support violence. What are your own views on the subject?

I am fairly sympathetic to Dr. O'Brien's position on this issue.

However the BBC has a charter whereby it can't by law prevent

interviewing which is balanced between the various political

parties. Therefore, as a presenter, I had to accept that rule. I do

see Dr. O'Brien's point as right though namely that there is a great

danger in it. Philosophically, I do not believe it is right to put an

organisation which is unequivocally, in their words, committed to

the support of the armed struggle, in their phrase, on the air. But I

did interview them. I did that because of the charter of the BBC, under which, undoubtedly, they had a right to be interviewed.

Against that, I don't think anyone, I don't mean just Sinn Fein,

anybody should be given a free vehicle and one of the difficulties about interviewing Sinn Fein or others is to give them a free run.

that seems to be to be wrong in principle. Equally, it's not for me

to start attacking them on broadcasts. I think that it's important if

they are in the news that I question them.

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John Hume

Do you feel the same way about the Ulster Defence Association and

other groups who also support the use of violence for political ends?

It would be the same for anyone that supports the use of violence

for political ends. That's my philosophical position. But while the law is there I will interview them, I hope seriously, I hope carefully

and I hope with a certain degree of anxiety about what the effects

are, within the law.

Isn't it worthwhile though to get these people on the air to find out

why they hold these views and to examine and cross-examine them

on their views? Afterall, informing people certainly could not be a

dangerous thing and it's up to the interviewer to make sure these

people or anyone for that matter aren't given a free run?

Do we learn something from putting on the airwaves someone

whose views we disagree with, who is committd to a type of action

which is not acceptable in any civilised society? I don't think we learn a great deal. I think we learn more from their actions rather

than for their reasons for those actions. But it doesn't mean that

one should pretend that the IRA, Sinn Fein or the UDA don't exist. They do exist and they should be reported. And while the

law, as is presently constructed exists, then there ought to be

political balance on the BBC and I accept that. But I think we should be aware that there is a problem and I do take the view that

publicity is very important to the illegal conspiracies.

Did you change your opinion of anyone after interviewing them?

Yes, I think there was. Father Faul was a good example and Cahal

Daly. Ian Paisley was a very good example. He did work at a

broadcast very hard. Danny Morrison was a particularly good broadcaster I must say. When I interviewed him he was effective,

direct and he didn't resort to the propaganda machine. So he's an

example that goes against what I was saying. But they didn't make

me change my views they just made me a little more aware that the

people themselves were more capable than I expected.

I didn't mean that these people might have changed your political views but rather your opinions or impressions of these people?

The whole programme changed my impression about whether or

not the Northern Ireland situation was amenable to reason or not.

The general view is that it's not. I do not take that view. I do take

the view that there are many cases where the conflict is more

imaginary than real, I mean in terms of the stated positions.

People can be unlicked out of dilemmas. A lot of it is the dilemma of words. For example, over the most recent Unionist problem, much of it is terminological so in that sense, the whole programme has made me absolutely convinced that in a crisis situation, you can use broadcasting creatively.

14 Fortnight 23rd June 1986

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