David Clark's experiences of TV interviews
David Clark was interviewed by Victoria MacDonald for Channel 4 News in November 2003 about missing money for mental health services in Buckinghamshire Mental Health Trust. The interview took about two hours to film in the Clarks’ home.
What Channel 4 wanted in particular was the personal angle, and they started the interview by describing our family predicament. They did a
very effective job of it too!
David Clark
What kinds of questions did they ask you?
“About our son and his mental illness, the possible causes, the impact on him and our family – all as background. Specific questions about budgets within our mental health trust and the discussions between me, the Trust, the Primary Care Trust and our MP"
How did you find explaining any key mesages you had?
“No problem, because I discussed it beforehand with Victoria and I rehearsed the points I wanted to make"
How did you feel afterwards?
"Satisfied that we were given a platform to challenge government thinking"
Did you have any family or friends around for moral support?
"My wife Chris, who participated in the interviews"
"Take every opportunity to speak out about severe mental illness and being a carer. Keep the points concise and keep calm"
Is there anything else that you would like to say about this particular interview?
“Severe mental illness is not a hot topic in political terms hence even in the media it takes second place to ‘real news’. Our interview took a full month to be broadcast in spite of Victoria’s best efforts"
“We were given a full seven-minute slot with interviews from myself and Chris, Cliff Prior, Rethink’s chief executive, our MP Paul Goodman and the mental health tsar Louis Appelby. Overall it seemed very effective at the time, especially as the government had to put up a spokesperson! Our local Primary Care Trust declined to participate.
They also wanted to show pictures of our son and to speak to him. We agreed to this on the condition that if Toby objected, the personal stuff would be left out. Toby did object and Victoria left out all of the items that we thought Toby would object to. This was negotiated in advance and the agreement was honoured.”
