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Jeremy Corbyn causes problems for Newsnight

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership bid has so far managed to inspire a legion of new supporters to join the Labour party. Alas, his unexpected popularity is also causing a problem for some members of the media.

After the Guardian launched an in-house investigation into whether their own Corbyn coverage was bias against him, Emily Maitlis, who has interviewed him for tonight’s Newsnight, has written a gushing blog post titled ‘Prepping to meet “the man of the moment”‘.  In it, she says that his tendency to veer off from textbook politician answers caused her a problem when preparing for the interview:

‘On the train to Leeds my producer Ed Brown and I are putting together a list of questions for Jeremy Corbyn. As usual, we start to role-play the interview to work out how it would take shape. Then something funny happens. Ed stops. Looks puzzled and says “I’ve just worked out I can’t imitate Corbyn’s voice. I don’t actually know what he’d say.”

It is a unique moment for a political producer. Usually, we can get the script word perfect. And the intonation to boot. How they start a sentence. And how they will avoid the question. It’s to Corbyn’s credit that we cannot – yet – second guess him.’

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Happily, the interview went well despite this obstacle, with Maitlis complimenting Corbyn on his sincerity.

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