An intriguing little item appears in this morning’s Herald. It’s about a question Radio Live’s Martin Devlin put to Dennis Conner in a phone interview at the weekend: Was there a chance that, when he attends an America’s Cup Legends charity dinner in Auckland this month, he might ‘make complete peace with Paul Holmes’.

Holmes was due to front the event, but was dropped after Conner, though not demanding that he be replaced, had expressed discomfort with the arrangement.

Conner’s reply to Devlin’s question was: ‘I don’t really remember that. Never say never to anything but certainly not high on my agenda.’

 And then, without pause: ‘Thank you, have a nice day and thanks for the call.’ And he was gone. A walkout of a sort and a minor re-run of the end of the original Holmes interview.

Devlin commented: ‘Hmm. He doesn’t remember, eh? Remembers enough though to insist that the bloke isn’t going to be the MC.’

Not according to David Higgins, one of the organisers of  the event,  who told the Herald that  Conner had not specifically said he didn’t want Holmes as MC:

“I gathered that probably wasn’t the right way to go… I like Paul. I have a lot of time for him but I spoke to Dennis on the phone and he actually came across as sharp.’

Holmes was quoted in the Herald on Sunday as having said it was ‘pathetic’ a person could hold on to something for 21 years.

Devlin is probably right that it’s barely credible that Conner can’t remember his interview with Holmes, given his response to Higgins. I suspect the truth is that he would find a public appearance with Holmes uncomfortable and that he doesn’t want to revisit or discuss an unpleasant episode in New Zealand 21 years ago when he’s returning to speak at a function to raise funds for Asthma New Zealand. He was an asthma sufferer himself as a child and it’s a cause close to his heart.

It might have been better if he’d just said so. But Conner is clearly someone who, both in a physical and a metaphorical sense, ‘walks away from’ disagreeable situations. I have some sympathy for him, I’m a bit like that myself.   

And the interview with Holmes was disagreeable. Its purpose was to antagonise and provoke Conner into the sort of unseemly outburst he was famous for. It was designed to achieve precisely the result that it did achieve – a nationwide public controversy about Holmes and Holmes. And this was to be done by badgering and humiliating the American.

As a sometime interviewer myself, I’m familiar with this approach, which is dependent on the interviewee being widely disliked or held in low regard by the public. It’s fine to get stuck into Brian Tamaki, but you’d be considerably more circumspect in an interview with Sir Paul Reeves. Interviewers and their producers know that nothing is better for ratings than riding popular bandwagons.

If you take another look at the Holmes/Conner interview, you’ll see that Conner is determinedly pleasant and polite in the face of a number of legitimate but forcefully presented questions about his team attempting to enter a catamaran in the America’s Cup. He argues that this was not his decision and that he was uncomfortable with it. Holmes then turns to his televised abusive remarks to Bruce Farr and asks him if he regrets his behaviour.

Conner replies: ‘Paul, it’s not a perfect world and I’ve made some mistakes in my life that I think all of us have. I look forward to moving on in a positive vein here.’

Holmes doesn’t want to move on in a positive vein.  He plays the video clip of Conner abusing Farr.

Holmes: ‘I want to give you the opportunity to say whether or not you regret that occasion. I know things can happen in the heat of the moment.’

Conner: ‘Paul, as I just said, it’s not a perfect world and we have all made some mistakes we’re not proud of. I’m no different.’

Conner has in fact expressed regret for his behaviour, which is precisely what Holmes originally asked him to do. But Holmes wants his pound of flesh. He repeats what Conner said to Farr. Then, speaking for the nation:

‘Do you think that those are things that need an apology to the New Zealand people in a country where you’re going to have to spend a bit of time?’

Conner stands up, wishes Holmes well and politely takes his leave.

Holmes calls after him: ‘But would you be interested in apologising to Mr Farr, in public, Mr Conner?’

It surely had to be a rhetorical question: ‘Would you like to ritually humiliate yourself on television, Mr Conner?’

Well, the country debated the rights and wrongs of the interview for several weeks. But Paul was up and running with the most successful local prime-time show that  we’ve ever seen or ever will see on New Zealand television. Asking people to apologise would become something of a theme on the programme.

I have enormous respect for Paul Holmes but my view of the Conner interview was that it breached the last item in Sir Robin Day’s Code for Television Interviewers:

10. He should remember that a television interviewer is not employed as a debater, prosecutor, inquisitor, psychiatrist or third-degree expert, but as a journalist seeking information on behalf of the public.

Nothing there about demanding public apologies.

As for Martin Devlin. I’m a huge fan. I told him just last week that if I ever made it on to Millionaire, I would want him as my sporting ‘phone a friend’.

But expecting Conner to kiss and make up with Holmes in public over his attempted humiliation by the New Zealand interviewer, however long ago, just isn’t realistic. Though the impasse might be resolved if Paul were to set the ball rolling by apologising to him. Conner may consider that apology 21 years overdue.

This surely breaks every rule of good set design. A background should add to the mood and the look of the programme.  If it’s an interview set it should allow people to wear a variety of clothing and colours without clashing horribly, looking like clowns or disappearing.

What it should never do is compete. This background not only competes – it wins every time.

And then there’s the panel set.  Three people elevated like high court judges, and Paul Holmes peering up at them from below, barely able to get his chin over  the bench.  Paul isn’t the tallest fellow on the planet, but he’s not a midget, for goodness sake, and this set makes him look ridiculously short.

Q + A is a welcome addition to our telly fare.  It’s our only chance to see politicians in extended interviews, to get past the sound-bite culture. The presenters are good – Holmes is in his element on an intelligent programme and Guyon Espiner has calmed down his Jack Russell impersonation enough to let people answer questions.

So let’s get rid of those moving backgrounds and make it a good watching experience as well.

And bring back the whimsically eccentric Jane Clifton.  I miss her.

19/4/09:  I see that they’ve lowered the bench on the panel set.  Now if they’d just deal to the stripes…

That said, the presence of a seasoned professional has given the show a more relaxed and confident feel. And Holmes is no slouch as an interviewer. His interviews have a softer edge to them than Guyon Espiner’s and are the better for it. The highly abrasive, interruptive style that has in the past been characteristic of interviewers like Plunkett, Hosking, Espiner and Larry Williams generally produces more heat than light and has less to do with informing the public than with the interviewer’s ego.

Holmes’ interview with new Labour President Andrew Little was a case in point. It began brilliantly:

PAUL: Good morning to you, Labour Party President and General Secretary of the EPMU Andrew Little.

ANDREW: Good morning, Paul.

PAUL: Who am I speaking to this morning.

ANDREW: You’re talking to Andrew Little.

PAUL: Am I speaking to the President of the Labour Party or am I speaking to the General Secretary of the EPMU?

ANDREW: Well, you’re talking to me about a range of issues, and when I came here I was told I was coming here with both hats on so I will answer the question. Now listen this thing about the…

PAUL: Well, the point I’m trying to make, I suppose,  is that there is potential for you to end up in a conflicted situation, isn’t there?  You’re interested in the Labour Party and not necessarily interested in your members.

ANDREW: Not at all. This is a story looking for some facts.

Though the atmosphere was friendly, Holmes continued to pursue Little on the potential for a conflict of interest between his role as General Secretary of the EPMU and his new job. There were  plenty of ‘facts’ to back up Holmes’ assertion of such a conflict and the new Labour President’s  replies were less than persuasive. Little is impressive, but his somewhat peremptory and over-confident manner of dismissing criticism will not serve him well in future interviews.

Espiner had interviewed Prime Minister John Key earlier in the programme. I have been forceful in my criticism of Espiner’s interviewing style in the past, but he is articulate, highly intelligent and extremely well-informed. He seemed to have abandoned the pit-bull in favour of the fossicking beagle in his interview with Key, a sign one hopes of a more mature approach to the job rather than of deference or political leaning. Journalists are entitled to observe and comment on Key’s honeymoon with the voters, but not to share the same hotel room.

I thought it was a very good interview. But not from Key’s point of view. There was an extraordinary lack of practical detail in his answers, a fact not missed by the programme’s panel. He waffled. There will be a limit to the number of times he can say, “Well, we’re working on it,’ before voters decide that the pre-election impression of him as a politician stronger on image than on substance may well have been right.

Not so Judith Collins whom Espiner interviewed on the second show. I was prepared to dislike her intensely.  Watching her sitting next to Tony Ryall in Parliament, I was constantly reminded of the fast-talking TV frontwoman ‘Gina Hardfaced-Bitch’ on the Australian sketch comedy series Fast Forward. Cold, impassive, stony-hearted.  

The Espiner interview revealed a very different person.  Collins’ performance was contained, certainly. She kept her answers brief and to the point and, unlike so many of her colleagues on both sides of the house, was familiar and comfortable with the words Yes and No. She was, in a word, straightforward. And, as the interview progressed, she allowed herself, her interviewer and the television audience the luxury of an occasional smile. An interviewer can always tell when another interviewer likes ‘the talent’. I could see that Espiner liked Collins. Why not?  She seemed almost… warm.

My assumptions about her likely approach to penal policy also proved incorrect. Collins talked a lot about rehabilitation and her emphasis, to my astonishment, was on reducing our prison population, already the second highest per capita in the developed world, rather than locking more offenders up and throwing away the key.  Espiner rarely misses a beat, but he really should have asked how such progressive thinking gelled with National and ACT’s  proposed ‘three strikes and you’re out’ legislation.  

It will be interesting to see whether Collins can back up her words with action. Liberal penal policies are anathema to Kiwis who see punishment, whether of felons or their own children, as the only effective deterrent to bad behaviour.

Q & A is a really good programme. It meets Lord Reith’s requirement of public service television that it should ‘inform, educate and entertain’.  So it was sad to see the second programme descend to the level of tabloid journalism. New Speaker, Lockwood Smith, was a legitimate subject for the programme, but his love-life was not. That part of the interview belonged in the Woman’s Weekly not on Q & A.  Maybe this was an attempt to increase the programme’s ratings. But the way to do that is for TVNZ to have the guts to put the programme on in peak time. They might be astonished to discover how many people would watch it.