London Writers' Salon

#014: Cathy Newman — Juggling Creative Projects, Writing News Stories and The Power of Creative Collaboration

Episode Summary

Award-winning investigative journalist and Channel 4 News’ presenter Cathy Newman talks about how she juggles creative projects, writing under pressure and the history of successful collaborations from Beyonce and Jayz to Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill.

Episode Notes

Why are creative partnerships so powerful? How can we work on multiple creative projects at one time? In this interview, we talk to the award-winning investigative journalist and Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman, we discuss her non-fiction book It Takes Two: A History of the Couples Who Dared to Be Different which is all about the power of collaboration. We deconstruct how she writes news stories, books, and her research process. We also explore the idea of creative partnerships from Beyonce and JayZ to Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill, how these partnerships are like a ‘dance’ and how we might spot our own creative collaborator.

ABOUT CATHY NEWMAN

Cathy Newman is an award-winning investigative journalist and Channel 4 News’ first female main presenter. Cathy is also the author of Bloody Brilliant Women: Pioneers, Revolutionaries & Geniuses Your History Teacher Forgot to Mention, and her latest book, It Takes Two: A History of the Couples Who Dared to Be Different.

SHOW NOTES:

[03:41] Cathy’s love for music, and why she shifted from music to writing

[05:15] Playing in The Commons, and about her music group, The Statutory Instruments

[07:40] Transitioning from writing journalistic articles to writing for TV

[10:10] Some examples of what Cathy’s writing process for TV looks like

[14:19] How she stays on top of things, including the tools she uses

[16:18] The inspiration behind her book It Takes Two

[19:19] The themes that unify the power collaborators, including competitiveness, muses, and the idea of the power couple

[22:34] The pas de deux and the concept of balance in relationships

[26:20] The partnerships and collaborations that have helped Cathy with her career

[30:18] How to find and form creative partnerships

[33:39] The writing and research process for her book

[43:24] Self-doubt and responding to positive and negative reception

[45:40] The power of reading and how it’s helped Cathy in difficult times

QUOTES FROM CATHY:

“I was fascinated by the idea that a coupledom is a dance and whether that's a work relationship, a romantic relationship, and as part of the research, I read, um, a German sociologist called Georg Simmel, who talked about this concept of dyads and why this relationship of two is so crucial. And here's what I felt was quite revolutionary, was that he was talking about the need for balance and a horizontal type approach to any relationship…you've got to be finely tuned and balanced for the dance to work.”

RESOURCES

Connect with Cathy Newman:

Twitter: @cathynewman

Instagram: @cathynewmanc4

Links from the show:

A dilemma for Nick Clegg as Lord Rennard apologises

Manhunt: Closing in on a British Paedophile

Ukraine conflict: Military actions unfortunately connected to human loss, says Sergei Lavrov

‘You’re being emotional’: What happened when I asked Sergei Lavrov about the blood on his hands

Bloody Brilliant Women: The Pioneers, Revolutionaries and Geniuses Your History Teacher Forgot to Mention by Cathy Newman

It Takes Two: A History of the Couples Who Dared to Be Different by Cathy Newman

The Statutory Instruments - UK Parliamentary String Quartet