At our tenth JournoFest, our trainees heard from Sam McAlister, a former barrister turned award-nominated journalist who secured the Prince Andrew interview about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
McAlister spent 10 years as interviews producer on Newsnight and is now a Visiting Senior Fellow in Practice at LSE Law School, teaching negotiation.
Here, part-time trainees Poppy Pearce, Freya Beard, and Sapphire Hope share what they learnt.
Sam McAlister’s account of how she landed the explosive Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew brimmed with pure journalistic determination.
Over more than a year, she was in back-and-forth communications with the Palace in attempts to secure the conversation that would become a BAFTA-nominated Scoop of the Year.
She said Prince Andrew’s team originally insisted the Epstein story was ‘an old one’ and the Prince would not consent to an interview if he were to be asked about Epstein.
However, when Epstein was arrested in July 2019, allegations of misconduct by the Duke of York subsequently flooded the news, and McAlister knew this angle would be her hook.
“If you are silent when you are accused of something this heinous,” she said. “Then that is always going to be the news.”
McAlister described the nerve-wracking build-up to the interview with Emily Maitlis, who conducted the infamous interview, even having a member of the production crew stand in as the Prince so that she could strategise her approach and try to pre-empt the directions the interview could take.
The content of the interview itself, which was watched live by roughly 1.7 million viewers, is familiar to most Brits, birthing such soundbites as his claim he is medically unable to sweat and his insistence that he was at Pizza Express in Woking on the night Virginia Giuffre alleged he sexually assaulted her.
Always delighted to see so many aspiring journalists, full of brilliant questions…. @NewsAssociates
And even got given a cheeky packet of M&Ms and a tin of martini (thanks Graham Dudman ❤️
#JournoFest @GrahamDudman pic.twitter.com/PCaga8DC0t
— Sam McAlister (@SamMcAlister1) March 15, 2025
Speaking of the immediate aftermath of the interview, McAlister described her shock that Prince Andrew appeared to see the interview as a success, but how this reflects a fundamental aspect of journalism.
She said: “The space between public perception and personal reality is what journalism is about.”
McAlister then discussed the perseverance required to succeed as an interview producer. She said: “99% of the job is rejection – you have to be really thick-skinned and resilient.”
On being asked a question about how to not let emotions interfere with interviews, McAlister emphasised the importance of separating emotions from her work, something that comes naturally due to her background as a barrister.
She revealed her number one rule of journalism would be to leave all emotions and judgements at the door, something tells all budding journalists.
She said: “I may have opinions outside of the room, but in the room, there is respect, dignity, an open mind, and no judgements or emotions.”
You can read all the highlights and top tips from JournoFest 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 here.