The NEWS HOUR from ALJAZEERA is the flag ship news programme linking Aljazeera news centres in Doha, London, Washington and Kuala Lumpur with dozens of field correspondents around the world, to ensure live and always up to date news coverage.

Due to the nature of a news channel, not all advertised programmes screen as they can be interrupted by breaking news.

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Click the link for an interview with Doha-based news anchor Nick Clark.

 

Before going on air, what do they usually do to you during the make-up process?

Slap on foundation and powder, the lights are pretty hot and bright on set.

Were you ever intimidated by any of your interviewees?

There's always a buzz when you have what may be regarded as a challenging interview and if they have a 'background', shall we say, that always adds a certain amount of adrenalin. For example, I had landed at Faro airport in Portugal to interview the Congolese rebel leader and warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba. No details other than to call a certain number and follow instructions. A black limo soon swept into sight and you have no choice but to get in and get the story. In the event we did the interview by Bemba's palatial villa's pool without a hitch. He was hospitable but clearly not overly impressed with our persistent questioning about his past. Bemba is now held by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

A similar interview saw my cameraman Ben Mitchell and I by the Louvre pyramid in Paris at midnight scanning the night-time shadows for a rendezvous with Abdul Wahid el Nur, leader of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, who had exiled himself to France.

He emerged and we went off to some wood-panelled apartment overlooking the Seine, to do the interview in the early hours. On that moonlit Parisian night, it struck me just how far away he was from the land where the struggle for peace continues to this day. Generally speaking, any interviewee knows you are the route to publicity one way or another. You just have to make sure you challenge him or her every step of the way.

When it comes to interviews, do you get the freedom to ask any question you deem suitable or is there a guideline to follow?

Al Jazeera gives me the leeway to conduct interviews as I see fit.

What’s the one thing every news anchor should avoid?

Fail to prepare and prepare to fail!

Aside from going on-air, what other tasks do you do at work? Do you contribute to the script-writing as well?

We check and rewrite certain scripts to suit our presentation styles. And of course in the field we write the scripts to the films we make. We'll also contribute articles about the stories we're doing to the Al Jazeera website.

What’s the best thing about your job?

The sheer diversity of the stories we cover and the people you meet and interview in covering those stories.

Can you imagine yourself doing anything apart from reporting news for a living?

No!

How do you prepare for work in the morning?

Beyond two or three mugs of tea, breakfast is not usually on the agenda. There's always a constant pile of reading material, from the regional papers to the International Herald Tribune and the Economist and so forth. Any journalist will be constantly reading and dipping in throughout the day, seven days a week.

What do you do to relax or unwind?

Fishing.

What was your first job?

I was a reporter on my local paper the Sutton and Cheam Guardian. It was a free paper most people used to light their fires! But it was a terrific background. You would cover everything from local politics to crime and I even had my own curry restaurant column!! No great gourmet writer but I became the definitive expert in where the best onion bhajees in south London could be found.

If you could go back in time and witness an episode in history, where and when would you go?

Spurs winning the Double in 1961. Actually I'd rather go forward in time to when I catch my first salmon.