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Tim Sebastian
Soft
talk with Tim Sebastian 
You know him as the hard talker on BBC who doesn’t mince words and doesn’t spare his guests on the much-talked-about Hard Talk. There’s more to Tim than the penetrating gaze and unsparing questions. To interview a seasoned interviewer like Tim could be a daunting task. But with his easy laughter and unpretentious demeanour, Tim makes it easy.
| You want stories and anecdotes out of interviewees. If it’s a politician, you want him to defend himself. But if it’s an actor you really want to hear inside stories about what goes on behind the scenes. You have to use different keys to open different locks |
He’s warm, genial and witty. Tim
Sebastian began his stint at the BBC as the channel’s European correspondent
in 1982. He was then sent to Moscow and Washington. Besides being a seasoned
television journalist Tim is also the author of six novels and two non-fiction
books. Over to the multi-faceted mediaperson who at the age of 49, seems
to have conquered the world. He was in India recently to promote his show
Hard Talk.
Does Hard Talk need promotion?
Everything needs promotion all the time. If the Ford Motor company stops
its advertising, its sales will go down.
So BBC is the Ford Motors of television?
(Laughs) We would like to be. Hence, this trip to India. I was here the
last time during the Kargil crisis. It was a grim time for all correspondents.
But I enjoyed interviewing the two ministers George Fernandes and Jaswant
Singh.
You really grilled the two of them, didn’t you?
I treated them no differently from other guests on Hard Talk. If you say
George Fernandes and Jaswant Singh were grilled then I’d say, no
more than Sartaj Aziz (laughs). I hope all the politicians from both India
and Pakistan were treated the same.
Of course. No one can accuse you of being partisan.
But lots of people did. I hope that wasn’t true. The point is, I
don’t know the complexities of the issue. Somebody who comes in for
just 48 hours cannot hope to understand the complexities of the Kashmir
issue. As a correspondent from outside, it was important for me not to
take sides. I simply took the opposite point of view to the one held by
whichever politician I was talking to.
But often the 48-hour visitor is at a vantage point and therefore able
to judge a situation dispassionately.
The crux of an interview is not so much understanding a situation as understanding
which questions to ask. A doctor doesn’t have to know you all your
life to diagnose your illness. As for the people who felt I was being
hard on the Indian politicians, I’m sorry, but the programme is called
Hard Talk. But I did quite a soft talk with Dilip Kumar. We have one rule
on Hard Talk. We never mug old ladies or old gentlemen on the show.
Did you enjoy speaking to Dilip Kumar?
Very much so. I was slightly surprised that he felt so threatened since
that Pakistani prize he had won.
On the show he looked more threatened by you than by fundamentalists.
(Laughs loudly) I don’t think so. I had no intention of grilling
him. Look, every interview is different. If a particular interviewee isn’t
telling you a lie, then there’s no point in grilling him. You want
stories and anecdotes out of them. If it’s a politician, you want
him to defend himself. But if it’s an actor you really want to hear
inside stories about what goes on behind the scenes. You have to use different
keys to open different locks.
Do you feel actors as a rule tend to act when they come on Hard Talk?
I think they do. I have interviewed a lot of actors who don’t really
know who they are. I am sure actors give performances on my show, just
as politicians give their own performance.
Recently you interviewed the octogenarian opera singer Kyra Vayne.
How did you handle her?
You handle everyone differently. She had so much of life to talk about.
How do I compress such a life in 30 minutes? I picked out the key moments
from her life. You select moments you feel are going to be the most interesting.
So basically you’ve got to know the answer to a question before you
ask it.
That must make your task very boring?
No. It’s only by knowing the answer that I can analyse a life and
ask the interviewee to retell it. Otherwise, I waste a lot of time going
on a verbal fishing expedition. I fish out information that is of no relevance
to the show. The whole point of the research that goes into the programme
and of the producer speaking beforehand to the guest is to ferret out
the most interesting portions of an interviewee’s life.
But you know the questions and answers while the interviewee knows probably
neither. Isn’t that unfair?
No, it’s the same with all guests. Somebody who agrees to come on
the show knows he’ll have to answer questions without being prepared.
And I certainly don’t go strictly by the pre-prepared questions.
Those are just a rough plan. The first duty of an interviewer is to listen,
not to talk. And if you don’t listen and don’t react to what
is being said, then there’s not much point in being there.
That’s what makes you such an interesting interviewer. You actually
listen.
You are very kind. If you were a woman, I’d blush.
You have been grilling guests on Hard Talk for almost three years?
Aren’t you bored as yet?
I find each interview to be an intellectual challenge. One way or
another you have to try to make each interviewee interesting.
Have you had guests who have really tried your patience?
Oh, God! Yes! Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth out.
In that case how do you fill up those thirty minutes?
By the sound of pulling teeth (laughs). It’s very hard sometimes.
We require our guests to perform to a certain extent. They may not be
professional actors. But they have to be engaging enough to sustain an
interesting conversation for 25 minutes. Quite honestly, sometimes we
fail! We have dropped broadcast of several interviews which we didn’t
find sufficiently interesting.
Please name some of those.
Oh, I couldn’t possibly. It would be very unfair to name the people
we dropped after recording. What I can tell you is they weren’t particularly
high-profile. Some people we thought would have an interesting story turned
out to be very boring. There’s a net to prevent such people from
coming to Hard Talk. But some of them slip through.
What kind of people do you enjoy interviewing the most?
I like interviewing politicians the best. They are challenging and I enjoy
the debate. Sometimes it becomes more a debate than an interview. Politicians
require more homework than others. The funny thing is, politicians never
expect an interviewer to do any homework. I enjoy putting forward unexpected
questions to them. They are constantly surprised when I do.
Do you enjoy interviewing a 20-something rock star?
Well I am not 20-something myself. But if they have interesting stories
to tell, why not? You have to have a basic interest in human beings in
general. You have to be curious about why people do the things that they
do.
Any Hard Talk that you enjoyed particularly in recent times?
Let me think... Nawaz Sharif’s son was difficult. You asked me about
fairness earlier on. At the end of the interview I wondered if I had been
fair to him. I was asking him to be answerable for the perceived sins
of his father. Perhaps that wasn’t fair.
Did you send him a letter of apology?
No, I didn’t. But I should have done that. I think I owed him an
apology. But I was surprised he didn’t defend his father more. Since
we didn’t have the benefit of the old man who was at that time otherwise
- detained, as they say, we just grilled the son. There are two rules
of a good interview: accuracy and fairness. And the two don’t always
have to be the same thing. The interviewer has to be constantly watchful
and self-critical. There have been instances when I have been unfair to
people.
Does anyone else come to mind?
Yes, there was the Queen (Elizabeth)’s press secretary Michael Shea.
I think I was slightly unfair to him. He was bound by confidentiality
to the Queen and I kept asking him about her matters. He was doing the
interview with one hand tied behind the back.
Has anyone ever got violent on your show?
Not yet. But we’re always prepared for it (laughs). I have to say
though, that some of the hardest interviews have produced some of the
most pleasant conversations after the interview. Sartaj Aziz was good
enough to invite me for coffee after the interview. Later, he also sent
me a cartoon from a Pakistani newspaper. It was a funny cartoon. It had
a woman shouting at her husband with a little boy wondering, "Why
is Mom behaving with Dad the way Tim Sebastian behaved with Sartaj Aziz".
It came with a nice comment on a foreign ministry notepad from Islamabad,
"I thought this might interest you". Considering it was a tough
interview I thought it was very gracious of Sartaj Aziz.
Any other fond remembrance from a recent interview?
Yes, there was a British Lord Janner. I gave him a very tough interview.
He is a lawyer. Before the interview started he turned around and said,
"Good Luck". I thought that was very cheeky of him. After the
interview, he sent me a good luck card as a joke.
Have you been able to form lasting bonds with any of your interviewees?
Yes, with one or two of them. But it wouldn’t be fair to name them.
They aren’t well known personalities. Sometimes when I get to the
end of an interview I want to continue knowing that person. With some
people, 25 minutes of conversation isn’t enough. I don’t socialise
much. I am not much into London’s cocktail circuit. I don’t
want to share drinks with someone whom I might grill the next day.
Subhash K Jha