Late night Live on ABC radio national with Phillip Adams’
(Thursday afternoon replay of the show from Wednesday the 14th of March)
Phillip Adams was quite a contrast to Jon Faine; it was something I picked up instantly. On this particular occasion Phil was interviewing 2 people as well, Mahfuz Anam the editor and co-founder of the ‘Daily Star’, Bangladesh’s leading English-language newspaper and his daughter Tahmima Anam who recently published a book called: A Golden Age. It wasn’t a face to face (or same studio kind) interview, Mahfuz was being interviewed over the phone and Tahmima was been interviewed from a live feed from an ABC studio somewhere in the UK. It was an informative and perhaps it had some more emotional elements later into the interview. Early on into the interview mentioning that Tahm had recently had a book published, it was mentioned very quickly and wasn’t re visited as a main subject much at all, which I thought really wasn’t enough to warrant it as promotional.
As I mentioned earlier it was quite a contrast to the Jon Faine interview, it had a whole lot more seriousness to it, there wasn’t too many of the interviewer’s personal comments put in, although there were some. There was an obvious amount of preparation and research; it definitely had some political enquiry to it. Though sometimes Phil did comment which provoked further comments from the interviewee, it didn’t sound as though he hadn’t prepared a question. There was an almost professional sounding subtlety about it, perhaps it was entirely accidental that the interviewee took it as a chance to further discuss jumping in before Phil had actually asked a question, I cant really be sure, either way it didn’t really change that I thought it was a good interview with a well polished interview technique.
I mentioned earlier that this had two interviewees I’m not sure if this is a regular occurrence or a special kind of thing, although Phil did mention that it was very rare that he interviews both a father daughter. Phil handled the double interview by asking questions 2 at a time to each Mahfuz and Tahm. It kept a really good balance to the interview and it stood out in a good way, although for some reason his patience sounded like it was a bit shorter when asking questions to Tahmima compared to when he was asking Mahfuz.
I do think this was the better overall interview of the two I listened too, although I did find the other more interesting in terms of content, This interview also gains points because it has been titled: Bangladesh; Give me back my country .
For more info or to hear it for your self, go to:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2007/1871938.htm
