On receiving an Honorary Degree from the University of Warwick, Krishnan Guru-Murthy reflects on his work - the day after his interview with Jeremy Corbyn
Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy gave a podcast interview yesterday (14 July) at the University of Warwick immediately after receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Letters.
Speaking after picking up the University of Warwick award – just a day after his highly-charged interview with Jeremy Corbyn – the TV broadcaster also discussed his self-critical nature and how he consistently reflects on his most recent interviews.
Krishnan told us: “I’m very self-critical, so which one stands out? You know, the one that’s bugging you, is probably the most recent… at any one point in time. The one you’re thinking did I get that right? Was I too soft? Was I too hard? Did I ask him the right questions? I should’ve asked him this and I didn’t - that kind of thing.
“I find thinking about success quite difficult; I find it very difficult to judge, so I don’t have a favourite [interview]. If I’m duffing up somebody you really like then you’re not going to be very happy about it, but similarly if you don’t like the person I happen to be duffing up then you might enjoy it a bit more, so there are no rights and wrongs and I don’t take everything too much to heart.
“You can’t do this game without being tortured a bit about what you’re doing. You’ve got to keep on your toes and not get complacent. So yes, I am self-critical, you should be.”
On being a part of the graduation, Krishnan said: “It was really nice. It was a very, very nice ceremony to be part of because I was so close to the faces of all those young people as they came up on to stage and so I really felt like I was sharing their day. I’m very bad at taking praise generally, I think, but it was very nice to hear the oration actually, very flattering.”
Krishnan also touched on the future of television news during his interview, as well as offering some words of advice for fellow-graduates: “The people who survive are going to be the people who have something distinctive and different to offer. If you’re just doing the news and you’re just doing a news bulletin very well – how many of those do we really want? At Channel 4 News we think we’ve got a very different and distinctive product which is about analysis, original journalism, holding people to account, big interviews – and that’s something that you’re not really getting elsewhere in television.
“We will adapt to how people’s habits adapt, that’s the key, it is viewers who determine what kind of thing they want from us and we will have to adapt to the way they want their news served up. But our core values, what we’re serving up, that is our brand and that will continue.
“You need to aim high, dare to dream, do not fall into this trap of setting achievable goals. Achievable goals are goals you can achieve and what’s the point in that? Too many people I meet say ‘I’ll never be able to do that’ and I really think people at this stage in their lives should dare to believe in themselves. You’ve got to live through rejection after rejection after rejection because sooner or later someone will believe in you.”
Listen to the full interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy here.
Notes to Editors:
Pictured: Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Krishnan Guru-Murthy with Warwick's Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies, Professor Christopher Hughes (left), and Provost Professor Stuart Croft.
Issued by Lee Page, Communications Manager, Press and Policy Office, The University of Warwick. Tel: +44 (0)2476 574 255, Mob: +44 (0)7920 531 221. Email: l.page@warwick.ac.uk.
PR 152 15/7/15