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BBC
RM: Shouldn’t a company’s first responsibility be to its shareholders rather than the media or the general public?
AV: The idea that a company is only accountable to its shareholders is flawed on a couple of fronts. Firstly, in many cases they don’t respond to shareholder concerns – although lip service is paid to those concerns you often get the impression that management is going to go ahead and do what it likes anyway. Secondly, that’s not all they’re accountable to – the credit crunch has made that really obvious. The myth of a company that lives and dies by its own light has been exposed by the credit crunch – private companies had to be rescued by the taxpayer because the system was under threat.
And the more companies make themselves accountable to the public, the better they look. Just take a look at Sainsbury’s – their chief executive is on the media all the time and he knows what he’s talking about so he can answer the tough questions. Other examples are Virgin and Nationwide. They all have great public profiles – it isn’t because they spend more on advertising, it’s because they appear on the media.
RM: Do you think people will lose interest in business news again once the economy has pulled out of recession?
AV: One really interesting effect that happened during the credit crunch is that negative news became so commonplace that it was no longer news. And people were clamouring to hear positive business news. I also think people have become more supportive of business as it has struggled through the recession, and business would do well to foster that sense among the public that they want businesses to do well.
I hope that people remain interested in business and continue to see why it is crucial to all our welfare, even after the recession is comfortably over.
RM: What would be your number one piece of advice to business people dealing with the media?
AV: When you appear on the media, be yourself as much as possible. Journalists’ antennae are constantly attuned to people who are faking it, so be real – then you will come across really well. The people who come across best on the radio – some of whom have never done radio before – are those people who live what they are talking about and feel that they have something to get across.
Andy Verity presents BBC Radio Five Live’s “Wake up to money” each weekday at 5.30am. The programme is also available on the BBC’s iPlayer at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer.
SPRING 2010
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