It’s 17:30, an hour-and-a-half before Jim Naughtie is set to give a talk at the Logie Lecture Theatre, he shakes my hand before sitting down in a plush tartan-covered chair in Stirling Court’s dining room.
Gillian, the PR representative for the university, hands him a glass of Merlot as he leans back and drapes one of his legs over the arm of the chair. She smiles as she tells me I have half an hour before she’ll be back to collect him for his photo opp.
Naughtie is an industry giant who hosted the Today Programme for twenty-one years before leaving in 2015. Despite leaving the show he’s hardly retired and splits his time between London and Edinburgh as a BBC special correspondent.
He asks what I’m wanting from him, and I say I’m writing a profile, “nothing too scary”. He tells me that he’s been doing this for too long to be scared.
Is Democracy Dead?
His talk interrogates the question: ‘Is democracy dead?’ – I ask him point blank whether it is, and he tells me no of course not, but it’s at risk.
It’s clear that he’s read up on nearly every topic in the political sphere, with my most basic questions spooling out a multi-faceted reply involving several case studies.
His main case study, though, revolves around Trump. He tells me he was in America just last week interviewing the former CIA Director, General Michael Hayden, and other high-ups ahead of the election next year.
“There are internal threats to democracy and there are external threats. The internal threat I think in America is the Trump movement.”
“Thoughtful Americans always talk about America as an experiment in democracy which has survived. But you can’t assume that it always will, and I think what Trump is challenging is the survival of that experiment.”
He doesn’t make eye contact with me much, except for when he’s making a point.
“Some of his greatest fans would say he is a true democrat, you know, he will govern for the people and all the rest of it. His critics would say that he’s never made a decision that isn’t in his own interest.”
I ask Naughtie if he thinks Trump will win the election next year, he says that it’s too soon to say yes or no (after covering multiple elections he’s probably right about that), but that he doesn’t think so.
There seems to be a stubbornness in Naughtie about the success of the democratic experiment.
A couple dining a few tables away from us laugh loudly as he makes his main point about democracy through a quote, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”
He emphasizes that, as a society, we’ve got to keep an eye on things; he looks at me dead-on when he says this.
Naughtie’s Ringside View
Keeping an eye on things is certainly something he’s done; he tells me how he’s enjoyed his “ringside view” of people and seeing how they deal with power. As he mentions different people he’s met, I sense that it is this fascination with power up close that has kept him in the game after so many years.
Besides the thrill of the chase that’s kept him going, he explains the difficulties of working for the BBC and trying to toe the line of impartiality.
“It’s difficult as the BBC is constantly under attack from both sides… it doesn’t matter if it’s a Labour government or a Tory government.”
He goes on to say, “It’s quite a challenge to live up to that obligation and sometimes you feel yourself maybe falling a little short or saying something you shouldn’t say.”
He’s quiet for a moment before he brings up, with good humour, how he accidentally called Jeremy Hunt “something he shouldn’t have”.
“I mean the really good thing about that whole episode, was that nobody, including Jeremy, thought for a minute that it was anything other than a blunder or stumble. And so, it was just kind of a joke.”
Gillian comes by and asks how far we are, and he tells her that we’ve gone on to Jeremy Hunt and how Naughtie made his career.
She laughs and he tells her that we’ll be done in two minutes.
Future of the News
I ask him where he sees the future of the news industry going and frowning, he says, “Fox News is now of course moderate in the States because of Newsmax and all these things… I find the encouragement for people to exist in silos where they never hear an opposing point of view and simply suck up what they’re told from a very particular position worrying.”
With a touch of sadness, he admits that newspapers probably will never quite be what they once were, but that even in this changing landscape he still believes that the desire for news isn’t going anywhere.
“Trusted information will always be needed… I don’t fear for the role of the journalist, people will always want trusted sources of news, it will just be performed in a different way.”
“I was Chief Political Correspondent of The Guardian for five years… I never filed a story on a laptop or used a mobile phone. Kids today ask me how I could do my job and I say, well, I can’t remember how we did it, but we did it.”
He drains the last drop of wine from his glass and, making eye contact with me, wishes me luck with my future endeavors before leaving to find a tie for his photo opp.
Featured Image Credit: Carlin Braun
South African student journalist in my second year of doing my Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Journalism Studies.
Instagram: @x_.lin_x
