Jeremy Vine: How my mistake as a BBC junior journalist made Jeremy Paxman’s career The strangest thing. I am reading the autobiography of Jeremy Paxman – my nemesis on Newsnight 100 years ago – […]

The strangest thing. I am reading the autobiography of Jeremy Paxman – my nemesis on Newsnight 100 years ago – and my eyes settle on a single sentence. The great TV man is bemoaning the way journalism works. The way it reduces everything to lifeless blocks of black and white when the world is a glorious kaleidoscope.

“I suppose when I eventually expire,” he groans, “the headline will be MAN WHO ASKED SAME QUESTION FOURTEEN TIMES DIES.”

Watch him at work

Ah. The reference is to his most famous interview. The guest was a Conservative leadership contender, Michael Howard. The point at issue was a little technical. Had Howard “threatened to overrule” Derek Lewis, head of the prison service? Hardly anyone now recalls the exact issue. Basically, if Howard admitted “threatening to overrule” Lewis, then the minister must have been in operational charge of prisons, and thus to blame for a series of jailbreaks.

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Staring from behind large-framed spectacles which now look very last-century, Howard’s stare becomes more and more tunnelled as the question returns again and again. Come to think of it, when the politician passes away, his own epitaph will be “MAN WHO REFUSED TO ANSWER SAME QUESTION FOURTEEN TIMES DIES”. Such is the power of the single defining moment.

The sentence in Paxman’s book which caused me to stop and stare was the one that followed. “It was not 14 times,” he writes. “But the repetition of that number proves that what matters is who produces the first account, and that was the figure used on the radio after the notorious interview.”

What? I thought. Not 14?

At this point my stomach churned. Suddenly I recalled that moment in 1997. I was a BBC political correspondent. Late at night, one of us would be left on shift with the job of waiting for every morning paper to arrive and ensuring we covered any new stories. Very analogue I know. Sometimes we could be there until 2am and a minicab home.

On that particular night, I was the chap “on lates”, rattling around in the open-plan Westminster newsroom where the bulbs burned yellow above desks littered with half-read faxes and stained styrofoam cups. Overlit and empty, the BBC office was every bit as spooky as the hotel in The Shining.

I switched on Newsnight. “We are joined by Michael Howard.” He was playing a straight bat. The sound was a burble. And then – wait. I turned up the volume on the mini-TV that sat on my desk. That same question. Again and again. It had been asked half-a-dozen times already.

Leaning in, I counted to 14, marking a pad. The incident spoke to a wider narrative; and how journalists love a narrative! Conservative crisis widens. Howard shambles. Fourteen times. Paxman. Lewis. I filed a voice piece and went home.

A shiver of doubt

In the cab, a shiver of doubt. Back then there was no way of spooling the interview back (I had not set a video), and for my figure of 14 to be correct the initial guess of six needed to be right. Oh well. It was just a brief report for Radio 4 in the morning. Nothing would come of it.

Over the months and years since, the “14 questions” legend grew, became a permanent fixture of British political life, cemented Paxman’s status at the top… and I forgot all about my role in the story. My report that morning in 1997 might have been the moment which first drew attention to the interview, but the fact that so many others followed up with same number must mean it had been checked and checked again.

The “14 questions” was correct – surely – because there have since been at least 100,000, probably more than a million, references to it in media all over the world. The figure was only repeated because it was checked, right?

You already know the answer.

In his book, Paxman tells how he listened to the report on the morning news and went into the office, concerned that 14 sounded high. He pulled the tape, probably a large plastic cartridge back then, and watched it back.

Paxman kindly does not mention me by name

The correct number was 12. Jeremy kindly does not mention me by name, something I discovered when I was sent his book by the organisers of this year’s Appledore Book Festival in Devon.

They had asked me to interview the veteran. The audience was large, squashed tightly in, and breathed heavily as we began. I was nervous; interviewers hate to interview interviewers. He seemed to hate being the interviewee, so we were both uncomfortable. “The 14 questions incident,” I began. “It was apparently not 14, but a mistake was made in the first report about it the morning after, is that correct?”

He looked at me suspiciously. “You don’t say who put out that report,” I added quietly. Now he blows into the full Grand Inquisitor mode. “Yes! It was you! I know it was you!”

“I’m just a bit excited to be part of your story,” I say, a little desperately. Paxman turns to the audience. “Look at him preening himself!” and they roar with laughter.

But it is all a bit worrying. My single report created the Legend of Fourteen Questions. The world repeated the number without ever checking, and it was wrong. Paxman’s tombstone will sport a factual error because of me. I am off now to bury my head in the Newsnight sandpit.

‘What I Learnt: What My Listeners Say – And Why We Should Take Notice’, by Jeremy Vine, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, is out now

@thejeremyvine