Sam McAlister – BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews

Sam McAlister is the woman who clinched the 2019 TV interview with Prince Andrew described as ‘a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion’.

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To her former BBC colleagues, she was the ‘booker extraordinaire,’ responsible for securing many of Newsnight’s exclusive interviews over the past decade including Stormy Daniels, Sean Spicer, Brigitte Höss, Steven Seagal, Mel Greig and Julian Assange.

Here she reveals for the first time the story behind that interview and the secrets of her trade. She also shares her personal story as the first in her family to go to university, a trained barrister, and a single mum, who against the odds, proved her worth in a fast-paced, hard-hitting TV newsroom.
After 12 years producing content for Newsnight, McAlister reflects with candor on her experience, sharing not just how the news gets made, but also changes at the BBC, the future of ‘mainstream media’ in the age of clickbait and the role of power and privilege in shaping our media landscape.