Few j-school tutors - or editors, for that matter - would ever commend AA Gill's interviewing technique as one to emulate. Here are the concluding paragraphs to his Sunday Times interview with David Hare.
As we reach the foyer, Hare is going to a cast and production bonding party. I ask for his phone number to check stuff. 'You don't take notes,' he says, 'or use a recorder.'
No. 'So, will you go away and write this up now?' No, I'll wait a couple of weeks. 'Well, how will you remember?'
By remembering. 'But will it sound like me?' No, it will sound like me having talked to you. There are two sorts of journalists.
Two sorts of journalists, eh? It reminds me that another iconoclastic writer, Christopher Hitchens, initially alarmed Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, by failing to carry a notebook on assignments.
Both men are, of course, highly readable. They must also have extremely good memories. But, in the event of a legal challenge, I wonder whether a court would be impressed. Gill would surely discover that, where journalists are concerned, there are not two sorts of judges.
