Cathy Newman

You know, always take someone out for lunch and get the story.

He also said, if you get a good story at lunch, go into the loo, write it down in your hand so you know that you're going to...

Remember it because in those days, people used to expect to have a drink over lunch.

You know, your contacts would expect to be bought a drink.

So, you know, you would sip a little bit, but you'd have to check yourself.

Exactly.

Not as much as them.

But so he was brilliant at telling me, showing me the ropes when I was first on newspapers at the Independent.

And just, you know, right away from Jim Gray, my old boss at Channel 4 News, who's now at the BBC.

you know,

People who show you how it's done, I suppose, and show you the ropes.

Matt Fry, my old colleague from Channel 4 News, was always a great friend and supporter.

Oh, God, now I'm going to have to name-check all the men.

Well, I have felt that occasionally right at the start because, for example, I was a media correspondent on the FT and I always remember in a press conference I would quite often be the only woman and someone like Sam Chisholm, who actually ironically used to run Sky, and Rupert Murdoch, you know, they used to pick me out because...

I stood out because I was the only woman.

And that was quite helpful.

But, yeah, have I ever got anywhere because of being a woman?

I don't really feel that.

No.

You know, the diversity hire thing is maddening, really, because I think very few women have got where they've got because they just ticked a box.