Emily Maitlis’s book isn’t an autobiography. By the end we are none the wiser about what she was like as a child, her personal relationships or the pivotal moments that led to her becoming arguably the BBC’s sharpest interviewer and lead presenter of Newsnight. While she does devote a chapter to her experience of being stalked, Airhead is mostly a compendium of her biggest interviews with politicians, celebrities, thinkers and, in one case, an actual living god. In showing us what happens in front of the camera as well as the chaos behind it, her aim is less to tell her life story than reveal the blood, sweat and tears that go into planning and delivering the news. “Unlike print there is no room for annotation or commentary as you go along,” she writes in the introduction. “What appears on the screen is what people see. Everything else is just interpretation.”
And so we accompany Maitlis as she is dispatched to Paris to cover the Bataclan terrorist attack; to Hong Kong to report on the umbrella democracy protests, and to Boone County, Iowa, for a Democratic caucus in a snow-smothered farmhouse. There are one-to-ones with Donald Trump, Tony Blair, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, the former civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal, Emma Thompson, James Comey and more, and here the presenter is able to share the build-up and comedown around each exchange. Some accounts work better than others: her awe at David Attenborough’s utterances make you briefly question her role as one of BBC TV’s interrogator-in-chiefs, while interviews with Simon Cowell and Russell Brand yield little of interest. She doesn’t get much out of the Dalai Lama, whom she meets at the “Prestige Suite” of an airport hotel, though her dawning realisation that, even with his sacred status, he is no different from your average blustering politician makes for amusing reading.
In the run-up to an interview with the former US president Bill Clinton, she agonises over whether to quiz him about Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern with whom he had an affair, in light of a recently published Vanity Fair piece in which Lewinsky described her treatment at the hands of future employers, feminists and the press. The meeting is due to take place in rural India where Clinton is campaigning about HIV and – of all things – women’s rights, but, on Maitlis’s arrival, a presidential aide informs her that Clinton has had a “funny turn”. Suddenly her main concern is not the Lewinsky question but whether he will drop dead with the cameras rolling. “One thing I learnt in that split second: the belief that you have any control is mythical,” she reflects. “Like those children’s books where you choose your own adventure but ultimately end up at the same place whatever you do.”
Maitlis paints a vivid picture of the intensity and unpredictability that come with her assignments, which punctures the perceived glamour of life reporting the news. Sleep, or the lack of it, is a recurring theme. We learn how relations with colleagues get fractious while chasing a story in a strange country when you are “out of clean pants and empathy”.
Her writing is excellent: precise, economical and accessible. And she does a nice line in self-mockery. When her editor, Neil, calls to discuss coverage of the migrant crisis at Budapest central station, all she can think about is whether she’ll be home in time for her birthday. Later, waiting in 43C heat for Clinton, she changes her clothes in a barn smothered in goat poo, and frets about her “pothole-jolted make-up” that looks “crayoned on by a three-year-old”.
Her account of the stalking case that has loomed over her for 27 years, and has resulted in a series of convictions for the perpetrator, is told reluctantly but poignantly. On another occasion, while reporting from Budapest, she mentions wearing a gold bracelet that was made from a bangle belonging to her grandmother who had carried it with her as she fled Nazi Germany. It’s a typical blink-and-you-miss-it moment of Maitlis history that leaves you wanting to know more.
Her thoughts on her professional performance along with the wider responsibilities of a national broadcaster are more revealing. Given the divisive political times and the ire frequently directed at news organisations, addressing the BBC’s role seems especially vital. Reflecting on her grilling of Steve Bannon in Prague, Maitlis is moved to ask “whether it’s right to air opinions our audience can use to understand his world, or whether we are oxygenating and empowering these views”. These are important questions to which there aren’t always clear answers, but it’s reassuring to know that they are being asked.
• Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News is published by Michael Joseph (£18.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
