{"id":32271,"date":"2023-04-19T16:49:59","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T14:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1818110"},"modified":"2023-04-19T17:03:33","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T15:03:33","slug":"beth-rigby-on-reporting-from-westminster-it-definitely-felt-like-a-boys-club-and-i-was-an-outsider","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/beth-rigby-on-reporting-from-westminster-it-definitely-felt-like-a-boys-club-and-i-was-an-outsider\/","title":{"rendered":"Beth Rigby on reporting from Westminster: \u201cIt definitely felt like a boys\u2019 club and I was an outsider\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sky’s political editor sat down for the Radio Times Podcast to chat about binge-watching box sets, being a woman in journalism and being in the “eye of the storm” of the news cycle. <\/p>

By Kelly-Anne Taylor\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 19 April 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

This interview was originally published in\u00a0Radio Times magazine<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This week\u2019s guest on the\u00a0Radio Times Podcast<\/a> is Sky\u2019s political editor, Beth Rigby<\/a>. Known for her robust interviews with politicians \u2013 from Boris Johnson to Nicola Sturgeon \u2013 she has also welcomed the likes of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska and Dame Emma Thompson onto her show Beth Rigby Interviews.<\/p>\n

In the podcast episode, Beth talks about how Westminster felt like a boy\u2019s club when she first joined and how female broadcasters face more scrutiny than their male counterparts.<\/p>\n

She chats about understandably watching a lot of news but making time for a good old fashioned box set binge-watch, as well as how having been in the \u201ceye of the storm\u201d of the news cycle helped her gain perspective on being part of the story.<\/p>\n

You can read what she had to say below, or listen to the full episode on your chosen podcast provider by\u00a0 clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\nWhat\u2019s the view from your sofa?<\/strong><\/p>\nIt\u2019s my much-beloved mid-century modern sideboard, which is full of rubbish. On the wall is my mum\u2019s old school sign \u2013 she was a headteacher. She died a few years ago and I found it in my dad\u2019s garage. It\u2019s my favourite possession and it hangs just above my second favourite possession, my TV.<\/p>\nSo what\u2019s usually on your TV?<\/strong><\/p>\nI watch a lot of news \u2013 obviously! I also love watching cookery programmes at the weekend. I use television as a way to switch off, so I binge-watch a lot of box sets. It can be dangerous \u2013 Slow Horses ruined me for a week because I would stay up watching it until 3am.<\/p>\nWho controls the remote in your home?<\/strong><\/p>\nNot me. It goes child one, child two, [my husband] Angelo and then me.<\/p>\nWhat was it like seeing yourself on screen for the first time?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nI hated it \u2013 and I still do. It\u2019s difficult because you should watch yourself back for your craft. I\u2019m really critical and I always think that I could have done an interview better.<\/p>\nDo you think female broadcasters face more scrutiny \u2014 and backlash \u00ad\u2014 than their male counterparts?<\/strong><\/p>\nSometimes if I\u2019m robust in an interview, I might get criticised. I\u2019ll watch a male contemporary do pretty much the same thing and it\u2019s seen as completely OK.<\/p>\nWhen it first happened, I was trending on Twitter because I\u2019d asked Boris Johnson a question at a press conference, and it had been very robust. I\u2019m sitting there thinking, \u201cThe guy wants to be prime minister. My job is to ask him difficult questions because he wants to lead the country. He\u2019s going to have to handle world leaders, to deal with President Xi and Vladimir Putin. Come on!\u201d It upset me, but as time went on, I realised it just comes with the territory.<\/p> What about Westminster? Is that still a man\u2019s world?<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen I joined Westminster, it definitely felt like a boys\u2019 club and I was an outsider. It reminded me of how it felt when I first went to Cambridge because I hadn\u2019t come from a private school.<\/p>\nThere are male networks \u2013 but it\u2019s also true that there are many more female politicians than when I started. We have female networks, a women\u2019s lobby group and women-in-Westminster drinks \u2013 the great thing is when Laura Kuenssberg, Pippa Crerar and other senior female journalists turn up to those things.<\/p>\nHaving been part of the story yourself \u2014 after attending Kay Burley\u2019s party while there were lockdown restrictions \u2014 has that changed the way you approach interviews?<\/strong><\/p>\nBeth Rigby Interviews\u2026 is a longform interview \u2013 the idea isn\u2019t to try to pull out a clip to put on social media which goes viral and gets six million hits. The point is to have a wider conversation. Sometimes it happens \u2013 not from you \u2013 but a section gets picked up by someone else and it gets cascaded in a way that the interviewee doesn\u2019t want. Of course, I feel bad about that.<\/p>\nIn terms of being part of the story, it did give me a perspective about what it\u2019s like to be in the eye of a storm and how that might feel. I think it probably made me a better interviewer when I got back to work.<\/p>\nHave any recent conversations left a mark on you?<\/strong><\/p>\nIn the age of 24\/7 news and social media, no one can sit and watch anything for more than 30 seconds. The art of conversation has been truncated. There is space for longform interviews on television.<\/p>\nI interviewed the former British soldier Shaun Pinner who joined the Ukrainian armed forces \u2013 he was a prisoner of war, taken by the Russians. He talked about the siege of Mariupol, how he was trying to escape, how he was captured, tortured and then released. The story was incredible \u2013 I am so privileged to be the person who gets to hear that.<\/p>\nIf yo<\/strong>u\u2019re looking for more to watch, check out our\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/tv\/tv-listings\/"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener" noopener noreferrer\">TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a title=\""https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/streaming-guide\/"\" href=\"\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/streaming-guide\/"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener" noopener noreferrer\">Streaming Guide<\/a>\u00a0or visit our\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/tv\/entertainment\/"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener" noopener noreferrer\">Entertainment<\/a>\u00a0hub.<\/strong><\/p>\nTry Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only \u00a31 with delivery to your home \u2013\u00a0<\/strong><a title=\""http:\/\/radiotimes.com\/magazine-subscription?utm_term=evergreen-article"\" href=\"\/\/radiotimes.com\/magazine-subscription?utm_term=evergreen-article"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener" noopener noreferrer\">subscribe now<\/strong><\/a>. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to\u00a0<\/strong><a title=\""https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/audio\/podcasts\/"\" href=\"\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/audio\/podcasts\/"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener" noopener noreferrer\">The Radio Times Podcast<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sky’s political editor sat down for the Radio Times Podcast to chat about binge-watching box sets, being a woman in journalism and being in the “eye of the storm” of the news cycle. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"template":"","categories":[6,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Sky's political editor sat down for the Radio Times Podcast to chat about binge-watching box sets, being a woman in journalism and being in the \"eye of the storm\" of the news cycle.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/32271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}