Max Atkinson's Blog

Prince Charles knew that what he said about Camilla becoming Queen was extremely delicate

Yesterday, I blogged about how the 'pre-delicate hitches' in some of the questions put to Prince William and Kate Middleton by ITN's Tom Bradby could be heard as indicating that he was rather more nervous than his interviewees (HERE).

Little did I expect that more pre-delicate hitches from Prince Charles were about to feature in a big news story on both sides of the Atlantic.

Newspapers don't often print detailed transcripts of what someone said in an interview. But several of the reports of the way Prince Charles answered the much publicised question from NBC's Brian Williams - about whether Camilla would ever become Queen - provided rather more detail than usual, accompanied as they were by dots along with comments to the effect that he'd been 'hesitant' or 'caught off guard'.

Daily Telegraph
Asked by NBC’s Brian Williams if the Duchess would become queen, the Prince, who seemed taken aback by the question, said: “That’s, well…we’ll see, won’t we? That could be.”
Although aides insisted the Prince had been caught off guard and there had been “no change” in the official position, the comment will be seen by many as an indication of his inner thoughts.

Daily Mirror
In a shift from previous statements, the Prince of Wales did not contradict an American interviewer who asked: "Does the Duchess of Cornwall become Queen of England, if and when you become the monarch?" Until now, the official position has been that the Duchess of Cornwall would have the title Princess Consort.
Hesitating, the prince replied: "That's well... we'll see won't we? That could be."

The Guardian
During an interview with the American network NBC, due to be aired tomorrow, Charles did not correct the presenter of NBC's Dateline programme, Brian Williams, when he asked: "Does the Duchess of Cornwall become Queen of England, if and when you become the monarch?" The prince hesitated, then replied: "That's well … we'll see won't we? That could be."

More hitches than a few dots

As you'll see from the video clip, the dots used in these news reports hardly do justice to the extraordinary number of 'pre-delicate hitches' - i.e. at least eleven of them (in blue) - that led up to his most widely reported sentence: "that could be":

"Wehh -uhhh-that's-umm that's (1 second pause) well (0.5 second pause) let's see won't we. But-uhh (1 second in-breath) Ummm (0.5 second pause) that (0.5 second pause) could be."

Hardly surprising, then, that his 'hesitancy' featured in news reports. But one interesting question is whether 'the comment will be seen by many as an indication of his inner thoughts' (Daily Telegraph), or whether it became headline news because of the way he led up to and made the comment - as is implied by the inclusion of dots in the rather inadequate media transcripts.

Whatever the answer, research in conversation analysis suggests that Prince Charles was displaying an awareness that he knew perfectly well that he was about to say something that would be heard by others as very delicate indeed.

RELATED POSTS ON PRE-DELICATE HITCHES:

Was the royal engagement interviewer more nervous than his interviewees?

It was quite a coup for Tom Bradby, ITN's political editor, to be favoured by Prince William and Kate Middleton for the first interview after the announcement of their engagement (as for why they chose him, see HERE).

The couple also did viewers a favour by sparing us from having to watch either of the Dimbleby brothers, let alone rival BBC or Sky News political editors, Nick Robinson or Adam Boulton, doing the job.

Who was the most nervous of them all?
But I was surprised to see various interviews with Mr Bradby about his encounter with them, in which he told us how nervous the couple had been during the interview - because there were a number of places where he seemed more nervous than either of his iterviewees.

This was especially evident in the way he giggled as he put some of the more 'delicate' questions.

Take, for example this one about whether they plan to have lots of children - to which Prince William's response is rather more assured than Bradby's question:

More giggles, a few pauses and hesitations came from Mr Bradby when he asked Miss Middleton about what it had been like meeting the Queen for the first time - to which her reply is rather more fluent than his question:

These are only two examples of something evident in quite a number of Mr Bradby's questions during the interview and on which I've blogged about before, namely what conversation analysts call 'pre-delicate hitches' (see links below for more examples).

Taken together, they gave the impression that he was much more nervous and less confident than he usually is when interviewing politicians.

Anyone interested in exploring this further can watch the whole interview below and/or access a transcript of it HERE.

RELATED POSTS ON PRE-DELICATE HITCHES:

0% of viewers remember all the points made in a BBC PowerPoint-style news presentation

Last night, I discovered that after dinner speeches don't always take place after dinner. I'd been invited to talk about PowerPoint to the Council of the Management Consultancies Association between the starter and the main course, with a Q-A session scheduled to take place after the diners had finished eating their main courses.

As after-dinner speeches are normally expected to be vaguely entertaining, it was a chance to combine a bit of amusement with some opportunistic research into something that, as regular blog readers know, is one of my recurring obsessions - namely the increasing use of PowerPoint-style presentations during British television news programmes (for more on which, see 'Related Posts' at the bottom of this page).

So I ended my talk with the following clip from a BBC Television News broadcast on the financial crisis, in which business editor Robert Peston gives us a 36 second presentation from the other side of the studio.

Research design

The diners were given no advance warning that, about half-way through the main course, they would be issued with a short quiz aimed at testing their retention of Peston's words of wisdom.

If you'd like to join in, don't read down to the questions below, watch the video first and then wait 10 minutes before coming back to have a go at answering them.

MCA Council Dinner Quiz

How much is the recue deal going to cost the government?
How much is that as a proportion of GDP?
How much a year will it cost each tax-payer?
How does Peston describe the recovery in bankers' willingness to lend?
What reason does he give for that?

Rules

No conferring.
To be completed before the end of the main course.
In te event of a tie, the result will be decided by the judge.

Results

As there was only one prize (a signed copy of Lend Me Your Ears), I had to allow for the possibility that everyone might score 100% - which I did by preparing a few tie-breaker questions.

It came as something of a surprise, even to me, that none of the 40 or so participants was able to answer all 5 questions correctly.

Only three of them (7.5%) managed to answer 4/5 correctly - so it didn't take long for the tie-breaker questions to produce a winner.

So what?

I wouldn't want to give too much weight to a research design that was intended partly as entertainment and partly to illustrate one of the themes of my talk. But I do think it's interesting that 92.5% of an audience of highly educated professionals - with far more experience of watching PowerPoint presentations than most ordinary viewers of BBC Television News programmes - were only able to remember three (or fewer than three) of the main points in Peston's report/presentation.

P.S. to visitors from countries outside the UK:

I've been trying to find out whether this trend towards PowerPoint-style TV news reports is a peculiarly British trend, or whether it's also happening in other countries. If you've any information on this, please let me know.

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