The BBC starts another of its multi-programme political documentaries tonight (2100 BST BBC2): Putin, Russia & and the West. Award-winning documentary-maker Norma Percy told students at the Reuters Institute in Oxford how they do it:
- A series typically takes 3 years to make and is costly: the BBC pays half and other TVs the rest.
- Based on interviews with protagonists, they aim to show how the closed-doors decisions in major political events were made.
- A good time to tackle an event is when many of the protagonists are out of power writing their memoirs.
- The politicians who come across best are those who are good story-tellers.
- Do the interviewees ever complain? “Only that we didn’t use enough of what they said.”
- How do you get the politicians to tell good stories? “I ask them to tell it as they did to the person they were negotiating with.”
- “We only broadcast what we believe is true. We don’t use obvious lies.”
- How do you know? “Either another politician corroborates it, or our researchers check it out.”
Previous series have covered Gorbachev, the break-up of Yugoslavia, Milosevic and American hostages in Iran. The BBC can attract big audiences, secure sizeable funding, and persuade world leaders to talk. That’s the drawing power of a broadcaster which has built its reputation carefully over decades. Worth learning how to do it.
Tags: BBC, broadcasting, documentaries, gorbachev, Iran, Milosevic, Norma Percy, Reuters, Reuters Institute, UK journalism
