Brian Walden died earlier in the Summer. In the 1980s he dominated the most serious end of political reporting. I was reminded of this after seeing some footage of him interviewing Margaret Thatcher from that time.
What was so in contrast to modern reporting was that he did not interrupt her; she seemed to be genuinely trying to explain the government's policy (i.e. giving reasons for her thinking), and most striking contrast of all, their questions and answers seemed to respond to each other. Today by contrast interviewers and interviewees do not seem to react to each other but just plough on with pre-set questions and lines without doing more than shoe on in what they have already said. The impression even by some reputable broadcasters is of a kind of faux gladitorialism, that Jeremy Paxman in particular tended to popularise. I am sure that this is not because of the quality of the interviewers is any worse. For instance I suspect that say Mishal Husain or Evan Davis could do just as well as Walden given an hour long format.
The problem is more that the broadcasters have given up on the format, and the politicians no longer need to appear on these programmes when so many other, softer channels are now available. The first of these problems could be solved by a requirement of broadcasters to use this sort of long format for a set number of programmes per year for certain named office holders: Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition etc. Of course they might refuse to show up, but that would obviously be a known fact that their opponents could use to embarrass them.
Why is it worth doing something like this? Well surely no one could be happy about the quality of our political debate at the moment, the easy evasions, the aggression and the general failure to engage in an exchange of ideas. We really do need to up the quality of debate somehow.
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