but you have got to know as the interviewer, he wants to make himself, his country, and his side and his purposes look good, and you are the instrument that he is using to do that. you know, you have got to make it absolutely clear that you are not on his side because that s not what we are paid to do. and that i think that is really, really important. and as somebody. let mejust say, i have heard quite a lot of interviews with president zelensky where people are rather inclined to say, you know, we are on your side, we think you are a great guy. you know, regardless of what you might think privately, that isn t the right approach, i don t think. yes, because we have talked on this programme before about impartiality and whether journalists are being or can be impartial in a war like this.
i don t think there was anything off the table, no. you know, that is another thing, i always have a bee in my bonnet about not to tell the interviewee beforehand, what you are going to ask, except in the most general terms. you know, not to let them get away with saying that some subjects are off the table. yeah, because how do you assess the control the ukrainian government has over how this conflict is reported, because clearly president zelensky is a key part of their media strategy. on monday, during the air raids, he was outside taking a video on his phone and he is very adept at bypassing journalists to get the message out? he is, and you have to know that. you have to know that he wants to manipulate you. it so happens that probably quite a large proportion of the audience that the interview was being watched and listened to by agree with him and think he is right, on the right side.
you are beginning to panicjust a little. and are you panicking this week, how are you feeling? actually, iam not, we have got two crackers. great, and then, of course, there s the supplements as well. do you sign off all the supplements on the magazines, too? so you ve presumably done them much earlier? yes, i make a point of signing off all the supplements, so this morning i should have signed off culture, but i was actually late in and my deputy signed it off for me. and then tomorrow i will sign off the magazine and style. on friday i sign off travel and money and at some point along the way, i also sign off property. so, it s pretty busy. it is a busy time. it is a busy week, yeah. and we will get very excited about your two scoops coming up. i am assuming you are not going to tell me anything about them now? no, i m not. 0k, more from you, emma, in a bit, but first let s turn to ukraine and the bbc s world affairs editor, john simpson. he went to kyiv to interview president zelens
you have seen what it was? there were two or three really important issues that you couldn t walk away from an interview with president zelensky without asking him. the first one was, did he think that there was going to be a nuclear attack? no question more important than that, really. and for his own reasons, of course, he has got to really keep our attention on the russian threat. so he wasn t going to say, no, i don t think there will be one, but at the same time, i think he doesn t seem to feel that is imminent in any way. so what he tended to do was to say that president putin was saying this, because he knows how unpopular the war is becoming in russia and he wants to make these kind of aggressive claims to keep the far right wingers
strongly against what zelensky stands for and what ukraine stands for, but there aren t that many of them. i think it really is important not to go along with that feeling, you know, kind of, we are all on your side, mr zelensky. that doesn t feel good to me. that was the bbc s world affairs editor, john simpson, talking to me earlier from the polish ukrainian border. you can see the full interview with president zelensky on the bbc iplayer. we are fortunate to have emma with us today, the editor of the sunday times. i wonder what you make of whatjohn simpson was saying at the end, that some journalists in the west have been too keen to pick a side? it is really interesting, and i think it is very easy forjournalists to get caught up in the righteousness of a war. obviously, the job of our journalists out there is to act as trusted eyewitnesses. it makes me think of