Richard Quest

It’s 9pm on a dreary Friday night in central London and Quest is gearing up to host his daily weekday flagship show ‘Quest Means Business’, broadcast live globally at 1600ET/2200CET. The CNN newsroom is eerily empty, bar some mice that have taken advantage of ongoing office renovations to terrify the female staff. Everything is subdued, tranquil even – nothing like the frenzied activity we associate with the Hollywood stereotype.

Quest emerges from make-up, seemingly unruffled, despite a seven-hour transatlantic flight from his New York base this morning. Introductions are made, and minutes later – he’s live on air.
Unbeknownst to the casual bystander uninitiated in the ways of live TV, the ensuing show contains a number of hiccups. One of the touch screens in the studio malfunctions, and the wrong page of script is posted up on the autocue, meaning Quest has to momentarily freestyle an introductory segue. None of this phases him in the slightest, and it would require extrasensory perception for the viewer to notice the glitch. In fact, during a commercial break, he’s more perturbed to discover a small hole in the sleeve of his pristine Gieves & Hawkes suit.

Following a set format, ‘Quest Means Business’ is the perfect foil for the man whose presentation technique veers between that of circus ringmaster and informed news journalist. Mixing both hard and soft news, this particular hourlong broadcast contrasts comment on president Obama’s speech detailing National Security Agency reforms, with a light-hearted look at CEOs in drag, prompted by the appearance of Dutch banking magnate Gerrit Zalm at a company conference as Priscilla, a brothel madame clad in a blue jersey gown and auburn wig. Segments are interspersed by the abrupt ding of an old-fashioned desk bell, the kind you’d find only at the reception of a hotel which doesn’t yet have CNN on tap. “It came about ages ago,” Quest remembers later. “We did an article on hotel front desks and it just stayed put afterwards. We ended up buying six of them, because they have a particular ring that works on TV – so they’re actually quite precious.” So precious in fact, that a fellow news anchor offers to drag up if he can ring it too. Naturally, Quest agrees.

With the rhythm established, the magazine format of the show continues, encompassing complex financial matters and more mundane snippets of news, each dealt with in a matter-of-fact way, specifically designed to make it palatable for the layman. This is partly due to its rigidly segmented nature, which sometimes only allows Quest as little as three-and-a-half minutes per item. “When I have a limited amount of time with a professional interviewee, I have to go for the throat because you have no time to build the case,” he says, with a hint of regret. However, it’s the opening and closing minutes of the show that are definitively Quest’s and Quest’s alone, if only because of the catchphrase “I’m Richard Quest. And I mean business,” spoken with a cadence straight out of a 1950s infomercial, but with enough self-deprecating humour to make it endearing rather than irritating. One gets the impression that, should he ever give up the day job, he’d be brilliant at sales.

“There’s a comment I always remember which said ‘it sounds like he’s been gargling with broken glass,’” he notes, “and not long ago somebody actually told me I should go and see a specialist. So I did. They shoved a tube down my throat and told me I have prominent false cords, which creates a raspy sound, but I’m happy to say, it’s perfectly normal.”

In fact, you get the impression that Quest is quite fond of his vocal quirks, although years of childhood elocution lessons have almost eradicated any trace of a Liverpudlian or Leeds accent. “After this long in the industry, I’ve developed what’s known as a broadcasting accent, with those rounded tones that anonymise the voice in a sense. But you’ll find my accent will come out when I’m interviewing some pompous CEO. I’ll come out with phrases like ‘Hang on, hang on,’ which shows a level of scepticism without making it explicit. Actually, the only criticism that I really take to heart is when I see viewers emailing or tweeting me about my shouting. That’s often because I get caught up in the moment. So I’ll remind myself that I’m getting a bit loud and it’s time to calm down a bit.”

Undeterred, at 13 years old, Quest was volunteering for hospital radio, getting involved with regional BBC stations and generally making a nuisance of himself trying to get autographs from DJs. However, in an era when a career in the media was not the number one option for school leavers, he opted to study law in its stead. “My father wasn’t exactly against the idea of me becoming a journalist per se, but the Jewish work ethic did come into play. He would constantly remind us all ‘there’s no business to hand on to you, so you’ve got to make your own way in the world.’ He also instilled in us the importance of our having a profession – so law it was.”

Quest wasn’t resentful of this career advice. Far from it. In fact, he remembers the majority of his studies at the University of Leeds as fascinating. “I never really liked law where there was money involved – tedious contracting, or international trade – but I loved negligence and criminality. As Professor Logan, who taught me criminal law, used to say: ‘You can ’t beat a good case of buggery,’ which always appealed to the storytelling part of me.” Three decades later, he still exercises the legal skills that saw him momentarily appointed to the bar. “I have no doubt that studying law shaped me as a journalist. Firstly, legal training teaches you to look at, assimilate and assess facts very quickly. Secondly, you learn to keep an open mind. I feel that a lot of journalists these days want to think that ‘the company’s a villain’ or ‘the man’s a crook’. The key thing that law taught me was always to put that to the test. Don’t assume that your interviewee is a raving loony or plain dishonest; just put it to the test. I think that is something that’s got lost in post-Watergate views on journalism. One thing I try to remember is that a person is never going to say to me, ‘You’re right, I hadn’t thought of that; I’m so glad you showed me the error of my ways.’ But what you can do is make the viewer see what this person is really like – whether they’re mean or kind-spirited or whether they’ve got a valid point regardless.”

Despite a tangential career start, it was always inevitable that the lure of the newsroom would supersede that of the courtroom. “If I’m being honest with myself, it’s always been there in the background. I failed my O-levels because I was too busy doing too many other things. At university, when everyone else was out at the pub, I’d be working on something else to get me ahead.” When eventually he plucked up the courage to apply for the prestigious BBC Traineeship Scheme, he spent days absorbing information from every news source available. “I can remember the interview panel as if it were yesterday. It was Margaret Thatcher’s visit to the US at the time, and because I’d read every conceivable piece of news coverage I could get hold of, I was able to talk about her itinerary in detail.”

To his surprise, he was accepted, despite the odds having been 100 to 1. “I’m not from Oxbridge. I’m just a middle-class boy from northern England made good, who went to a red-brick university and who got average grades but was still a bit of an over-achiever elsewhere.” He still remembers the moment with pleasure: “When I joined the BBC I found that, yes, there really was a green light in the studio that comes on ten seconds before you’re meant to speak; walking though Broadcasting House that day I knew I belonged there.”

Currently, it seems, the opposite is true. Hollywood junkets with celebrities are often reduced to sound bites of less than ten minutes, public figures are media trained to the extent that they rarely divulge anything of genuine interest, and the CEOs of major organisations prefer to send their deputies to face the media firing squad.

Naturally, Quest has potential solutions to these journalistic conundrums. “One of the reasons why I’m fairly fierce on the programme now is to request that we only want chief executives, because anyone else frankly ends up as some weak, lily-livered, pusillanimous excuse for a person who’s scared of their own shadow. A good CEO will come on the show, look you in the eye and admit that it was a bloody awful year, rather than trying to tell you black is white when the facts say otherwise.”

He does, however, have techniques for dealing with public figures who have gone through media training, a relatively recent phenomenon that creates a virtual firewall between journalist and subject, usually resulting in a blank refusal to answer a question, or a deflection (or spin) onto a different topic altogether. “Most media training is designed for a full-frontal attack, so don’t ask the questions that are the most anticipated. Sometimes a sideways approach works better, on the lines of ‘You’re having difficulty with this question…’ or ‘I’m trying to understand why you’re having trouble addressing this.’”

Quest also recommends silence as one of the interviewer’s best friends. “If necessary, just prompt them with a few simple things. Look at them in the eye and say: ‘But what was it about it that you enjoyed?’ Too many reporters are hell-bent on trying to prove that they are cleverer than the interviewee. All you’ve got to do is get a little stick out and prod them now and again. Interviewees are like animals in the zoo.”

He describes the best interviews as being similar to ballroom dancing, for which cooperation is required from both participants. “When you watch a ballroom dancer on the floor, it’s magic, wonderful, beautiful. But if I’m ready to dance and you’re not, or we’re going in the wrong direction, that’s where it goes wrong. The best interviews I’ve done all had something to do with my questions, the chemistry, or the interviewee, but mainly it was because we were both prepared to do the dance.” Nevertheless, he concedes that the format of modern news broadcasting rarely elicits the elusive “gotcha” question, where the subject confesses to a misdeed or let’s slip a vital piece of information. “I can remember interviewing Madonna and asking her, ‘Would you approve if your 16-year-old daughter danced around half-naked on stage like you did?’ She looked at me as if she wanted to do me a nasty injury and said: ‘Probably not.’ Now that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for: a moment of honesty that gives them something to reflect upon.”

It’s ironic, but just as Madonna is frequently lambasted on account of her advancing years (she’s now 55), Quest, at almost 52, is seen to be just hitting his stride. “It’s a sad fact that, as I get older, I get told I have gravitas, but my female contemporaries start losing their jobs. I’ve worked with both Moira Stuart and Angela Ripp on (both former news journalists who have raised the issue of discrimination within the news media), and to see the smoothness of their anchoring and presenting was like watching a hot knife in butter.” Nevertheless he does admit to being vain, or possessing the combination of vanity and paranoia that is the wont of any broadcast journalist. “The best way I can describe it is: one moment you’re the best thing in the world and the next you’re the biggest piece of excrement, but you just have to convince yourself that you’re the best piece of excrement until the pendulum swings back. I think anyone on TV has that element of insecurity about them – and if they don’t then they’re a fool.” To this end, between 7 and 8am every morning he will be at the gym, a routine which serves as an opportunity for reflection in an otherwise packed schedule. “I can already hear people saying it’s tedious, but I’ll run on the treadmill to the point of pukesville because it’s pushing me to see what I can do. I’m 51 and I’m trying to get abs – it’s pathetic.”

In fact, bar the more salacious details of the incident, he’s never denied it took place, nor has he denied the ensuing drugs counselling. “If it’s the third search that comes up on the internet – then so be it. I’ve made it clear that I want nobody to gerrymander where it appears. I must admit, I don’t bring it up in interviews any more, because part of me likes to see the journalist squirm, but I can’t erase something that was part of my life because, in my profession, to do that would be the height of hypocrisy.”

In the light of the ongoing trial of Rebekah Brooks, the former editor of the ‘News of the World’, it’s rare to see such candour from a prominent news journalist. But this comes from the guy who, when offered a role working for Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera in 2006, reportedly turned down the job on the basis that, being both gay and Jewish, it probably wasn’t an ideal fit. His own sexuality is something that he’s always been remarkably open about, way before the more prurient details of the Central Park case emerged. “I’m of the generation where being outwardly gay wasn’t taboo, but it wasn’t generally discussed either, whereas now, when I look around the newsroom, I see a lot of openly gay guys – and that’s great, because it’s all about the normalcy of the situation and I’m a great advocate for that.”

Once in mid-air, Quest displays all the traits of a seasoned traveller. Off comes the suit and on go jogging bottoms and a T-shirt. Being tall, he prefers an aisle seat, or better still, the luxury of an empty row, where even the ministrations of his flight attendant fan club won’t distract him from gazing out of the window and dreaming. “I just love the feeling of the aircraft riding the air. For me, because I cover aviation, I know the plane is performing beautifully. I’ve become an expert on the Atlantic. It’s an hour from London to the west coast of Ireland, three hours across the Atlantic, and then a further two-and-a-half to three hours down the eastern seaboard.” During that time, he’ll do what most of us do – eat, sleep, watch a movie – as well as prepare himself for the following day’s interviews from a copious folder of notes and cuttings.

However, it’s in these rare moments of solitude that he also considers his own place within the media. “The other month, I interviewed Jeff Smise k, the chairman, president and CEO of United Airlines, and I thought to myself, ‘Richard, what did you do today? You made yourself a bit of breakfast, you made sure you had clean socks on and you toddled off to interview someone.’ This man, Smisek, got up with nearly 90,000 employees, about 300,000 people will get on his planes today. He’s got 1000 planes in the air right now and he has to decide the strategy for the organisation. He’s got responsibilities we cannot even conceive of, whereas I’m just a light in the corner of the room that could be switched off at any moment. I’ve got an element of respect for that.”

And with that, he buttons up his mackintosh and disappears into the January night. In the forthcoming week he’ll be interviewing Ban Ki -moon, secretary-general of the United Nations and instigating a new, uniquely Quest gimmick: the “Selfie Challenge”, which sees the veteran newscaster collaring powerbrokers such as the IMF’s Christine Lagarde, U2’s Bono and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu amongst others, for a uniquely unflattering and brilliantly funny series of portraits. And that’s Quest in a nutshell. He may sometimes be provocative. He may sometimes be bombastic. But what other journalist has goofy snapshots of world leaders on their cell phone?