Mat writes about the making of a podcast that was filmed by the BBC for Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day Appeal. In the podcast, Miles and Nawshin, two of Listen Up’s reporters met Prince William and talked to him about their experience of homelessness and his plans to help end homelessness.  

Working with the BBC and Comic Relief to produce a podcast with Miles and Nawshin, two of Listen’s Up’s reporters has reminded me to keep an open mind. I’m a pretty cynical republican at heart; but as with everything in this world preconceptions and stereotyping can work both ways. While I was thinking of the media as being blinded by an agenda and all members of the royal family deafened by privilege, what I found was something completely different.   

It’s not like my view of the media isn’t well founded. Reporting on homelessness in the mainstream media can often be laden with judgement and even when reporters mean well, they can stereotype and stigmatise those with experience of homelessness. Vulnerable people in general can be misrepresented, with a focus on sensational stories like the bloke who was made a hero for helping people at the Manchester bombing before being torn down in a blaze of public judgement that completely ignored context. 

My role in this project was to protect the reporters from these sorts of abuses. It’s not like they couldn’t do this for themselves, but when people are wrapped up in the excitement of a project like this it can be difficult to recognise and voice concerns. It was easier for me to keep an eye on things because I wasn’t directly involved in the recording of the film and podcast. To add to this, my natural cynicism when it comes to working with the media made me a good fit for the role, but I tried really hard not to be blinkered by that mistrust.  

To my surprise, it turned out to be a pretty straightforward task. The representatives from both the BBC and Comic Relief bent themselves every which way they could to accommodate the breeze. They weren’t just fuelled by a desire to do the right thing, they were also directed by an impressive grasp of progressive safeguarding concerns and techniques.  

In the run up to filming and recording the podcast, I talked a lot to the two reporters who were involved and at no point did they feel uncomfortable. In fact, any hurdles were dealt with through consultation and with as little fuss and pressure as possible. The reporters felt like they were being listened to at all points because the sort of care and consideration when it came to safeguarding allowed them to relax and give the best of themselves on the day.  

I had a massive laugh with Nawshin, one of the two reporters who took part after I met her carer at the house with a cab on the day. With the cab waiting and a few minutes left until our planned departure time, Nawshin still had her Pj’s and a dressing gown on with a towel wrapped around her head. I thought this is how she planned to meet Prince Willliam and shoot the film. Okay, I thought, this is her day, and if she wants to meet the Prince like that, I’m not going to be the one to rain on her parade.  

But after travelling to Comic Relief like this in the cab, she took her suitcase into a room and like a superhero, came out in a shining gold outfit that made her radiate like the sunshine. The other reporter, Miles, was equally relaxed after traveling down from York, where he is based, the day before. The manner in which Miles was enthused by the project helped me to deal with my cynicism and trust the media. I’ve got to know him pretty well through this project and I trust his judgement in people so his confidence rubbed off on me and the whole team. Both reporters’ confidence in themselves shone through in the way they talked on the day. They were both erudite, on point and professional.  

  

I find filming difficult. I love watching film but the repetitive nature of making films doesn’t really play well with my ADHD. I’ve been on a few film sets and I usually get restless at some point but the feel-good factor on this shoot meant I was absolutely engrossed from start to finish.  

It was just such an amazing thing to see how the Listen Up project had provided a platform for two reporters to share their stories in this way. I have seen both of them gain confidence in the last few years in the same way that I have through telling my stories on projects like this over the past 6 or 7 years.  

All in all, this was an incredibly positive experience that has gone some way towards me starting to trust the media a little bit more than I did. And please don’t get me wrong. We are very far from being in the perfect world when it comes to reporting on vulnerable people, but I do believe we have come a hell of a long way in the past twenty years and I do believe project’s like Listen Up are making a profound difference. And it isn’t just the overall narrative that is being transformed, it is also the lives of the people who take part in projects like this.  

All in all it seems to me that this collaboration with the BBC and Comic Relief was an incredibly positive experience for all who took part.