Press Gazette - 1 April 2009

Is there a living to made from online?

Freelance journalist turned solo web publisher Rob McGibbon explains why he hasn't given up on making a living online - and says he is amazed that so much money is thrown at the web without so much as a business plan.

"But, Rob, how are you going to make any money?" If I'd got a quid for every time I've been asked that question since launching Access Interviews.com a year ago, then, well, I’d be writing to you from Barbados while sharing a chilled Banks beer with Fred the Shred as we wondered where it all went wrong.

It is hardly surprising people ask me this. After all, it is the alchemical media conundrum of the digital age, which is baffling the sharpest of minds: How the hell do you make cash out of content that is more expensive than gold to produce when every web user sees it as free lead?

My situation is a microcosm of this all-consuming problem. To bring all you thoughtless no-shows who don’t know about AccessInterviews.com (AI) up to speed, I shall quickly re-cap: AI aggregates and catalogues links to interviews which are produced worldwide in every key media genre - newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, online.

We don't carry the content but instead direct users back to the copyright holder's website. Essentially, we are a bespoke search engine for premium journalistic content, as well as a promotional platform for journalists and publishers. Hacks love it, particularly for research, because there isn't anything else like it. Yes, I am a genius.

But what is the reality of being a lone freelance who creates a major website, then spends a vast chunk of his time running it and trying to make it a success? Very rewarding. Endlessly frustrating. Unbelievably challenging.

Add expensive to all that those - and knackering. Websites never sleep, so the past year has seen me working unpaid seven days a week during which I have researched and uploaded upwards of 15,000 interviews. My poor eyes. I am mad.

But I didn’t launch AI blindly. I knew it would be a massive commitment, and that any financial payback was a long-term gamble, but I have always had - rightly or wrongly - a spirit of adventure to pursue ideas rather than join the big-talking "What If Club" down the pub.

Testing

The internet is testing everyone, especially at the highest levels. Recently, I had lunch with a senior national newspaper executive who has personally helped spend untold millions on its websites, which simply give away his company's hard-won journalism. Why? I asked quite bluntly, and he replied flatly: "In the hope that it will come good." I have had the same conversation with others in similar positions across the UK media.

Amazing, isn't it? All this money is being thrown at the web without so much as a business plan. Surely, no intelligent business people would invest heavily in a scheme that promised high returns without checking the small print. Hang on a sec, has anyone heard of Bernard Madoff? Is the media investing in a colossal iPonzi? Ugh - am I!

The thing is, in a small way, I am already starting to get a return from AI, so maybe it is not all a scam. It has been a phenomenal struggle, but our audience has risen from nothing to 72,000 unique visitors in February who viewed 187,000 pages. Given recent growth patterns, these figures will double within a few months. That is a respectable audience.

While our traffic appears modest next to the millions that newspaper sites attract, we're not in the thrall of numbers for numbers' sake. We have particularly solid user loyalty and depth of visit statistics, which mean more to us at this stage than ephemeral volume spikes. We also have a "power audience" (yep, you media lot) which has attracted a sponsorship deal with the innovative travel debit card company Caxton FX.

Furthermore, the Perform Group has recently taken over our advertising solutions and its team there is confident that worthwhile advertising revenue is achievable given our audience and the quality of our filtered content. They see AI as a highly desirable boutique brand, not a shopping mall.

It has also been encouraging to see how much has changed in the way that content publishers edit their websites since we launched. Newspapers realise that an exclusive interview is a potent way to attract new online users, and increasingly they are channelling these into a dedicated "interviews" section with an RSS feed, rather than losing them within impenetrable sections such as sport, entertainment et cetera. The Guardian and The Scotsman have led the way, but AI needs every title to do this to have any chance of linking to all the latest interviews.

Glossy magazines are catching up with newspapers in terms of running interviews on their websites. I had a positive dialogue recently with Condé Nast managing director Nicholas Coleridge, who is keen for the company's titles to further exploit their unrivalled interviews access. Soon, AI will launch the "Magazine Rack" which will promote the forthcoming interviews in magazines, which could even help drive readers to the hard copies.

In January, I had an excellent meeting with Leigh Aspin, head of interactive at BBC Radio 4, and he wants its entire interviews inventory to be automatically linked on AI. This will be a phenomenal step forward. I have had similar chats with the people at Sky and ITV.

Community

All this adds up to a bigger and more interesting website. One of my main hopes is for AI to become a journalists' community site, and already many journos upload their back catalogue because they see the benefit in having their portfolio of work from many titles in one place.

Pretty much my entire journalistic career has revolved around interviewing. I believe that the interview is the essential piece of content that unifies all media genres and all readers, users, or viewers. Everyone is interested in someone. I think the interview will become ever-more vital to the media during the digital age.

I hope to see a day in the future when AI is the all-powerful central search hub for the world's interviews. Every journalist, newspaper, magazine, TV and radio station will automatically link their latest exclusives to us so they can reach our global audience and enjoy a share of our advertising revenue.

Around about this time, I will bump into an old journalist pal who will ask me how the heck I managed to make any money out of AccessInterviews.com. I will look at him through my pebble lens glasses and say: "Well, it all came good. Thank ****."

And I won't be the only one with that feeling of monumental relief.

Access Interviews.com reveals the ‘Most Accessed List’ of 2009

The interviews aggregation website www.AccessInterviews.com has revealed that the froth of celebrity interviews was beaten in the popularity stakes last year by hard-hitting human interest stories.

The most popular interview of 2009 in A.I’s ‘Most Accessed List’ was the Mail on Sunday's moving piece by freelancer Nicky Murfitt with Katie Piper, the model whose deranged boyfriend sent a stranger to throw acid in her face.

Second was the Hudson River hero pilot Captain Chesley Sullenberger talking on Radio 4's Today programme. Third was the Daily Mail's interview with two year old Oscar Wrigley who became Mensa's youngest British member.

AccessInterviews.com – which was founded by freelance journalist Rob McGibbon – catalogues interviews from all media genre and links its readers back to the copyright holders’ websites. The website is free to users and is sponsored by credit card company Caxton fx.

The ‘Most Accessed List’ also shows that new technology has given radio stations a growing level of reach with their interviews. Stations such as Absolute enjoy unrivalled access to personalities and the ability to embed video and audio of these in-depth encounters has given them soaring popularity.

Showbiz still shone through with Katie Price being the most popular over all subject. The most read interviewer was The Independent's Ian Burrell. The most popular source was The Sun.

Now in its third year, AccessInterviews.com will unveil a major revamp of its design and functionality in February which will include new social networking features and video content.

Rob McGibbon said: “Interviews are the enduring heartbeat of the media and continue to be the best way to reach new audiences. Radio is undergoing its own revolution in this arena and capitalizing on its unrivalled access by filming the interviews. These interviews are often way more revealing than the equivalent on TV chat shows.

“The business of interviewing is busier and more popular than ever. And it is ever more important to every platform of journalism.”


THE FULL TOP 10s of 2009

INTERVIEWS

1. Katie Piper, Mail on Sunday, Nikki Murfitt
2. Chesley Sullenberger, Today BBC Radio 4
3. Oscar Wrigley, Daily Mail, Julie Moult
4. Ricky Gervais, Absolute Radio, Cristian O’Connell
5. Richard Curtis, The Independent, Ian Burrell
6. Simon Cowell, Daily Mail, Rebecca Hardy
7. Gordon Brown, Daily Telegraph, Mary Riddell
8. Chris Evans, The Times, Ben Hoyle
9. Katie Price, ITV, Ant and Dec
10. David Tennant, Sunday Times, Arabella Weir


SUBJECTS

1. Katie Price
2. Alistair Darling
3. Natascha Kampusch
4. Georgi Dochev
5. Ricky Gervais
6. Simon Cowell
7. Leonardo DiCaprio
8. Rupert Penry-Jones
9. Chesley Sullenberger
10. Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean

SOURCES

1. The Sun
2. Absolute Radio
3. Radio 4
4. GMTV
5. Daily Mail
6. The Times
7. The Independent
8. The Guardian
9. Vanity Fair
10 Closer

INTERVIEWERS

1. Ian Burell, The Independent
2. Jim Naughtie, Today, Radio 4
3. Cristian O’Connell, Absolute Radio
4. Alison Smith-Squire, Daily Mail
5. Emma Cox, The Sun
6. Jenny Johnston, Daily Mail
7. Robert Crampton, The Times
8. Jon Wilde, Mail on Sunday
9. Sam Wostear, The Sun
10. Ginny Dougary, The Times

Evening Standard, 27 January 2010

Journalism.co.uk - 25 April 2008

The Story of AccessInterviews.com

By Laura Oliver

We give developers the opportunity to tell us journalists why we should sit up and pay attention to the sites and devices they are working on. Today, it’s indexing interviews across the web from Access Interviews.

1) Who are you and what’s it all about?
My name is Rob McGibbon and I am a freelance journalist with a background in writing – mainly celebrity interviews – for various national titles. I launched Access Interviews.com in January 2008 after two years of development.

The website provides a unique index to the world’s interviews with subjects of all kinds and in every category. AI is a totally original concept, which is not bad going in such a crowded web world!

The site works on an open editorial platform. Web editors on newspapers and magazines and individual journalists submit links to the interviews, which they have published on their own websites.

Access Interviews does not carry the actual content but instead links back to the copyright owner’s website and automatically maintains a full searchable archive of the links to interviews that are submitted.

2) Why would this be useful to a journalist?
It is useful in many ways to journalists. It is ideal for research because Access Interviews only carries genuine, professionally sourced interviews.

This material is often the most important for a journalist. You can save a lot of time you might otherwise waste on Google by going to AI first.

Access Interviews is also a great tool for journalists and publishers to promote their work. Individual writers can create a portfolio of their interviews, which is particularly useful for freelance journalists who work across a number of titles.

Newspapers or magazines can also promote their archives as a way of drawing new readers to their website or hard copy.

Some magazines and provincial newspapers have small circulations but get great access to high profile personalities because of the credibility of the publication.

Our website is a powerful independent platform to showcase exclusive work and bring a new audience to the work of smaller publications.

The AI site is also the perfect way of establishing the true origin and copyright of an interview. This is incredibly useful for journalists who originate so much material, only to see it ripped off in this digital world.

3) Is this it, or is there more to come?
I am already developing three other websites that will be launched later this year, but the priority is to get Access Interviews fully established and being used by the journalists.

There are already extensive plans to expand AI, so this is my focus.

4) Why are you doing this?
More is definitely not always best and the internet is living proof. It is congested with worthless and often inaccurate content. Interviews are the golden source of content and I want to create a 24-carat resource for journalists and to generally promote the value of the professional interview.

5) What does it cost to use it?
It is free to use and there is no need to register. Click and go. How can you resist?

6) How will you make it pay?
Regretfully, the money side is very much phase two. I expect any business-minded person would hear me say that and scream or laugh.

Essentially, my plan is to make a great website that becomes indispensable to journalists and users generally. By doing this, Access Interviews will have a powerful readership which, in turn, will make it an interesting proposition for big brand advertisers.

Journalism.co.uk - 11 January 2008

Innovations In Journalism: AccessInterviews.com provides online archive

By Laura Oliver

A new website is aiming to create an archive of online interviews. Launched last week, Accessinterviews.com provides direct links to newspaper, magazine and other interviews online, allowing users to search for one-on-ones with news personalities.

The site will also feature interviews by its founder, freelance journalist Rob McGibbon, and a blog-style ’secret diary of an interviewer’.

It’s a very ambitious project – in an interview with Press Gazette McGibbon says he has been developing the self-funded idea for two years – but could prove a useful resource for journalists as the search for interviews can be filtered by name, subject matter, author and publication.

Press Gazette - 27 January 2009

Access Interviews.com salutes Gordon Smart Coldplay chumminess

Journalist Rob McGibbon has celebrated the first birthday of his website Access Interviews - which aggregates journalists’ interviews from all over the web - by creating the Access Interviews Awards 2009.

Most accessed interview of the year was Henrietta Zuel, by Matt Dickinson of The Times.

More fun are his irreverant categories such as Most Inept Interviewer of the Year - winner DJ Les Ross’ now legendary chat with Hardeep Singh Koli.

Says Rob: “This was a supreme master class in all the things you are not supposed to do as an interviewer. No preparation, no clear line of questioning, an attitude to totally piss off your subject.”

Winner of the Gone Native award went to Sun Bizarre editor Gordon Smart for “Kidnapped by Coldplay“.

Rob says: “We accept that a certain degree of chumminess is necessary to get the goods from an interview, but Gordon showed enough warmth to accelerate the melting of the ice cap while schmoozing with hack hating Chris Martin and his band mates (do the others have names?).

“Gordon gushed and puffed until Coldplay fell down on his tape recorder. To prove he was well onside he donned a Coldplay stage outfit, drank their booze, used their cars, their jet, their LA hotel and even joined their football team.

“But it is his name-checking of the flunkies that brings him the Gone Native trophy: ‘I watched from the sound desk with the group’s tour manager, Franksy, PA Vicki and Arlene, who works for the management.’

“We applaud Gordon’s ligging abilities in securing this junket at (we hope) the record company’s expense and for getting a centre spread out of a reportage preview to an interview. But it was all worth it because the resulting world exclusive interview produced a stunning revelatory line: “We miss X-Factor“.

Press Gazette - 18 April 2008

My Week: Rob McGibbon

Rob McGibbon reveals the working week of a freelance journalist and rising web entrepreneur

Monday

It’s British Press Awards week and bow-tie time. Think “thank yous”. Think product placement.

I am not up for an award, but don’t worry, I’m philosophical. Now I think about it, I’ve not won anything for writing since the school’s English prize in 1977 for an essay about my love for Tatum O’Neal. We starred in International Velvet together.

Anyway, moving on, this year I am guaranteed a win of some kind because I am a sponsor. My new website, AccessInterviews.com, is backing the interviewer of the year award. It is a bizarre turnaround – as an interviewer, I have essentially aided and abetted countless vain others in their pursuit of publicity. Now, it is me that needs exposure. Hmm.

In general, the days of my weeks are pretty similar. Sorry. Each morning, I go to my office in the shadow of giant, rusting gas holders in west London. This is my freelance desert island. I cultivate optimism here. First thing, I check every newspaper and update Access Interviews with links to interviews that writers or web editors have yet to load themselves. Not everyone has twigged it is not automated. Later, I have a long meeting with Mettic, the tech company behind Access Interviews. This too follows a similar pattern: I present a list of ideas, then the geeks talk excitedly in a series of incomprehensible three-letter acronyms, while I look out the window.

Tuesday

Good news – top bloggers Iain Dale and Madame Arcati have picked up on my filmed Jeffrey Archer interview. I meet up with Alan Edwards, PR hero to the A-list. His Outside Organisation has been on board with Access Interviews from day one. Back to the office to edit an interview with Will Self with my one-man TV crew, Yuri Krylov.

Next to the awards venue, Grosvenor House, where I am confronted by the name AccessInterviews.com on silk banners and rotating on two huge cinema screens. I am thrilled, but I also feel a bit odd adopting this corporate identity. I’m just a journalist taking a punt. Any worries are assuaged by Daniel Finkelstein, the jolly political guru of The Times. We’ve not met before. Unprompted (honestly), he enthuses about Access Interviews. To hear this from a journo of his stature makes the unending struggle seem a worthwhile. Various meet-and-greets follow in whirl of luvvie-ness.

The dinner and awards continue smoothly. Chrissy Iley is named interviewer of the year. I present her with a magnum of Taittinger, then I am able to relax a bit. I ease my way into the three-stroke sauvignon blanc. The atmosphere this year seems more convivial than ever. Are our newspaper folk mellowing with age? Jon Snow is a star, which, sadly, David Cameron is not. He could have really shone tonight, but he blows it. He rambles and clearly revels in his reputation as a “great” speaker. I search for a loudspeaker to call out: “Sub-editor to the stage.”

Stand-out moment is easily Paul Dacre’s lifetime achievement award. And the stand-up moment came when a besotted executive led the standing ovation at the Associated table. Linford Christie prided himself on going on the “b” of the bang. This loyal subject was upright on the “D” of Dacre.

The announcement seems to fill the room with great confusion. To cheer or jeer? But as Dacre takes the stage, slowly, almost statesman-like, the cocktail of well-oiled mixed feelings – envy, disgust, admiration and so on – seem to collide in the air and explode into a gentle, celebratory confetti over the ruler of Middle England: Respect is the word that pervades.

People are positively transfixed as Dacre moves towards the lectern. He is going to speak to US. It is like that freaky moment when the solar eclipse completes. You know, when day becomes night for a beat and even the birds are so confused they stop singing. I swear, as “the guv’nor” delivers his short, sharp speech, even the army of non-English speaking Hispanic waiters stop to listen.

Wednesday

I sweat out the three-stroke with a run along the Thames. James Montgomery, the affable editor of FT.com, makes my day by setting up RSS feeds to Access Interviews. Life continues with a flashback slideshow of the BPA on a loop.

Thursday

Today, I am jetting to my idyllic farmhouse in France. The depressing words omitted from that sentence are “on Ryanair” and “rented for a week”. I am in dire need of a break. Juggling all aspects of Access Interviews has been knackering. I need to reboot my router and do some writing.

Rob McGibbon is a freelance journalist and founder of AccessInterviews.com

The Independent - 26 January 2009

Interviewing: It's not just a load of old chit-chat

Without journalists specialising in interviews, the media would lose its beating heart, says Rob McGibbon.

Brace. Brace. We are entering the eye of the awards season storm. Prepare for flash floods of tears and sudden squalls of sickening effusiveness. Kate Winslet has already set the gush barometer barmy with her unintentionally hilarious Golden Globes meltdown, so this year's Thank Yous might be messier than usual.

I expect all the brilliant creative people will rightfully be thanked as well as some questionable additions such as lawyers, designers and dentists. But will anyone ever thank the forgotten tribe who do so much to elevate our beloved stars onto those podiums of glory? No, of course they won't.

Who am I referring to? Well, no less than the humble interviewers. Of course, raw talent and critical acclaim should ultimately decide who gets what gong and, thankfully, that is generally the case. But who can deny the power and influence that publicity and marketing carry in the awards process? The interview is the essential axis around which all the hype spins.

Mickey Rourke, who is already a worthy Globe winner for The Wrestler and is in the ring with nominations for a BAFTA and an Oscar, has never been more available to the media than in the past six months. It is refreshing that he admitted his volubility is all down to his pursuit of the big awards. "If you want to win, you gotta sell the movie – and that means doing every goddamn interview possible," he said recently.Rourke knows that publicity helps create "momentum" in the closing weeks of awards campaigns, which can provide the deciding nudge for an undecided judge with a hovering pen.

The power of the interview is not confined to showbiz and is a driving factor whenever people have something to sell. Personalities from business, sport and politics all need to do interviews in order to plug into the media's mainframe.

If breaking news and comment are the brains of the media, then interviews are its beating heart, which is why magazines, newspapers, television and radio stations, devote so much space to them. Everyone is interested in someone and the world would be a lot less knowledgeable if not for the industry of the interviewers extracting all this information.

A skilled interviewer is the primary source of revelations that often set the agenda, because everyone else shamelessly feeds off an exclusive line no matter where it originated. How often is the day's political story generated from the 8.10am grilling by John Humphrys on the Today programme, or by a comment from GMTV's regular sofa pundit, Gordon Brown? How much longer would it have taken Alistair Darling to reveal the true trauma of our country's finances if it weren't for Decca Aitkenhead's diligence for The Guardian?

And on lighter matters, thanks to Ginny Dougary we know that Felix Dennis once joked that he'd killed a man. Only to deny it after publication (boo). And due to Piers Morgan's jugular questioning for GQ we know that Nick Clegg chalked up "no more than 30" lovers and that Helen Mirren – and many others that Morgan has interviewed, except, of course, David Cameron – once liked a toot of cocaine. Hell, if it wasn't for Rebecca Hardy of The Daily Mail the world would never know Piers Morgan took drugs.

Equally, if it wasn't for the good old fashioned interrogation we wouldn't have the joy of hearing Steve McClaren talking English with a Dutch accent or listening to Hardeep Singh Kohli get his turban in a twist while locking plastic horns with Les Ross of BBC Radio West Midlands.

The business of interviewing is in rude health, but where is the thanks for the interviewers? Interviewing is one of the most labour-intensive fields of journalism. It is time consuming and takes skills on all levels – contacts and negotiation with PRs (yawn), research, planning, the tricky blend of personable tact and cunning to conduct the interview, and the ability to write or broadcast your results.

It is for this reason that Access Interviews.com will today announce the winners of the world's first annual awards dedicated to interviewers. There'll be no ceremony or party – we're all skint, right? – but just a nod of respect to the best and most popular. It also seems only fair that we prod the egos of a few interviewers who have gone beyond the call of journalism to please some stars.

Naturally, a tasteful margin of schmoozing is a prerequisite in this business, but certain hacks are worthy winners of our "Ventouse" award for suction and the "Gone Native" award for getting too chummy with a subject.

Its fitting that Frost/Nixon is up for a clutch of movie awards. It celebrates the most famous interview of the 20th century. Maybe all interviewers can accept that recognition as acknowledgement of our vital role in the scheme of media things that matter.

Rob McGibbon is a freelance journalist and the founder of AccessInterviews.com – the global platform for publishers and journalists to promote their exclusive interviews. Link to AI for free at www.accessinterviews.com

Madame Arcati - 8 April 2008

Rob McGibbon and his criminally insane egomaniacs

By Madame Arcati

Rob McGibbon is a freelance journalist, principally an interviewer. Recently he launched the website AccessInterviews.com (click here) which aggregates links to the best interviews written or broadcast by leading journalists. It is a cool website which Arcati has been known to dip into and write about. Hence I was able to turn the tables on the arch interrogator and ask McGibbon a few questions myself in what is, essentially, a “world” exclusive interview…

Congratulations on Access Interviews, Rob ...

Well, thank you, Madame. And can I say, thank you to you for using AI and for being what I believe they call an “early adopter”. But enough of this luvvieness…

Which is the best interview ever in the history of the world? People often say Truman Capote's encounter with Marlon Brando in the '50s ...

I re-visited that Capote-Brando interview recently. Yes, it was a great piece, full of wonderful colour, but I can’t believe it is the best ever. I mean, f***, what about my interview with Ross Boatman from London’s Burning for The Sun in 1992?

Capote did a nice job, but I am instantly suspicious of the fact he didn’t take any notes. People with photographic memories wind me up. I have wasted years of my life transcribing tapes, so the thought that it could be done with instant recall fills me with envy and anger. Also, I think spectacles have become a bit rose tinted regarding that interview because of the double helping of fame. Celebrities interviewing celebrities has a similar blinding effect today on some editors. No names, naturally.

Access Interviews - it creates a platform for journalists and publications to link their major interviews to a world audience. How do you hope it will make money?

...interview continues (at length) at Madame Arcati

Daily Mail - 13 February 2008

Dennis the menace's film rant

The Diary

Nearly four decades after Felix Dennis was jailed for nine months after the notorious Oz magazine obscenity trial, the events continue to send shivers down the multi-millionaire's spine.

Although the 60-year- old publisher's conviction was quashed on appeal, he remains marked by the events of 1971.

Now worth more than £750 million and listed as the 95th richest man in Britain, he has taken exception to the forthcoming film Hippie Hippie Shake - starring Sienna Miller as a free-loving flower child - that centres around the trial.

Dennis was a drop-out living on the dole when he co-founded the satirical magazine Oz with fellow defendants Richard Neville and James Anderson.

But he was taken aback when he was given the script of producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner's film, which is based on Neville's autobiography and due out later this year.

The movie, according to Dennis, bears no relation to what actually happened. So much so that the tycoon refused to sign a legal waiver with the film's makers, Working Title and Universal Studios, that would have barred him from suing if he did not like it.

Says Dennis, who has homes in Warwickshire, New York and Mustique: "It is not about history. It is not about what happened. It is Hollywood history, which means it is a love story in which everything is just switched around for the sake of making a movie."

In the film, the trial judge - who famously questioned Dennis's intelligence - is played by Sir Derek Jacobi while Felix is portrayed by Irish actor Chris O'Dowd, best known for the TV comedy The IT Crowd.

Irish heart-throb actor Cillian Murphy plays Neville and his girlfriend's part is taken by Miss Miller, who will appear naked at least once.

Dennis, whose publishing empire stretches from lifestyle magazines to computer weeklies, explains in a filmed interview for the new website Access Interviews.com: "When I read the script, I thought this has nothing to do with reality. It is about whether Tim Bevan can get more money by getting more bums on seats.

He adds: "You have massive conglomerates making a film about a bunch of hippies in Britain. Well, I bet that is going to be really sensitive and get down to the issues - like hell!

"What it will get down to is whether Sienna agrees to let her t**s be seen front-on or not."

However, he jokes: "What can be wrong with a movie where Sienna Miller is going to take all her clothes off?

"I wish Sienna a tremendous career and lots of success. I don't want to stop people having a good time and making money."

The Media Interview.com - 25 February 2009

An amazing interview archive

By George Plumley

To borrow from an old expression – I wish I’d built that. I’m referring to Access Interviews, a site begun last year by British journalist Rob McGibbon, which aims to archive links to all types of media interviews anywhere on the web. And you’re invited to submit interviews for inclusion in the archive.

The links are all nicely categorized and easily searched, and they point back to the original source so it’s great for journalists and researchers. And among the categories is the media itself, so you’ll find lots of interviews with interviewers.

I’m in heaven.

The Independent - 30 January 2008

Pandora: Neil's bride that never was

By Oliver Duff

As a colourful exponent of the single life – just ask the rotating harem of dusky beauties hanging off his arm – Andrew Neil has kept schtum over deep affairs of his heart. This week, however, The Daily Politics presenter has given a revealing personal interview in which he speaks of a youthful romance and brief engagement.

"She was absolutely beautiful," recalls the misty-eyed Neil, on the new website AccessInterviews. "We were in love and in our early twenties. We met at a student conference. She was at Manchester and I was at Glasgow." After buying a ring, Neil got cold feet and abruptly called off plans for the betrothal, deciding it would "end in tears". He declines to reveal the woman's identity, insisting that she is a "private individual".

Pandora would, of course, be happy to hear from the would-be Mrs Neil, should she so wish.

Webuser.co.uk - 12 January 2008

Website that indexes interviews from the last 150 years goes live

A project to assemble an index of interviews on the web has been launched.

Access Interviews, the brainchild of journalist and author Rob McGibbon, aims to aggregate interviews with celebrities and public figures from the last 150 years.

On the site you'll find links to interviews with the likes of Nigella Lawson, Bill Wyman, Sophie Dahl and Monty Panesar.

The links to the interviews are organised into sections such as Human Interest, Crime and Arts & Theatre. You can also submit interviews that have been published elsewhere online.

McGibbon said that the internet was the perfect tool for creating a searchable index of interviews, something that would have been much more challenging in the past.

"A few years back, something like this would have cost millions and taken a huge team. But I have managed it with a handful of dedicated techies and a belly load of expensive belief," said McGibbon.

McGibbon worked with several major publishing companies to assemble the index, and said that traffic to the site had already been encouraging.

"We have already had respectful traffic during the previous testing weeks. It is amazing how these things spread," he said.

Editors Weblog.org - 10 January 2008

Website to aggregate all journalistic interviews

By Jean Yves Chainon

Rob McGibbon, a freelance journalist in the UK, has launched a website, AccessInterviews.com, that aims to offer a comprehensive collection of journalistic interviews. If successful, this site will certainly become an invaluable resource for all journalists – and readers.

McGibbon hopes to make Access Interviews become the referential index to the world’s past and present interviews feature online. It will also serve as a promotional tool for publishers with exclusive interviews who want to draw readers to their own sites.

Access Interviews will be free for users and sustain itself through advertising as well as sponsorship.

Says McGibbon:

“Also, more interviews are appearing online as magazines and newspapers open up their archives. By generating the links to this content on an independent site such Access Interviews, publishers will attract new premium web traffic deep into their sites.

“I think this will have particular appeal to magazines that get amazing celebrity access but have modest print circulations and low web traffic.

“Journalists and web editors hold the keys to the archives, so I appeal to them to get digging and post the links.

“My ambition is to archive every interview since the genre began in 1859.”

The site will also feature filmed interviews with celebrities carried out by McGibbon.

Iain Dale's Diary - 20 January 2008

New Interview Resource Launched

By Iain Dale

Check THIS site out. It's called Access Interviews and aims to archive every interview since 1859. Quite an undertaking. It's the brainchild of celebrity interviewer Rob McGibbon, who is also adding video content on the site as well as articles on the art if interviewing. The politics pages are a bit sparse at the moment but are being added to every week. Users can submit interviews themselves too. What a great resource!

Guardian.co.uk - 12 January 2008

Rob launches interview archive

By Roy Greenslade

Welcome to an enterprising initiative by freelance journalist Rob McGibbon. He has launched a website aiming to offer a comprehensive collection of journalistic interviews, an archive that could prove to be an invaluable resource. He says: "My ambition is to archive every interview since the genre began in 1859." Wow! It's free to users. McGibbon is hoping to fund it through a mixture of advertising and sponsorship. (Via AccessInterviews)

The Independent - 17 March 2008

If content is king, the interview must be his crown

Journalist Rob McGibbon has set up a treasure trove of celebrity press interviews which he hopes will realise his dream of making a fortune from the internet.

In this dizzy digital age journalists are becoming hardened to seeing their sacred art forms hijacked by any chancer with a computer. News and sports coverage have been transformed by Google News and its countless imitations, not to mention legions of have-a-go citizen journalists; comment, previously the preserve of pious editorial writers and lofty columnists, has been substantially muffled by the shouting match between a billion bloggers; even critics are being marginalised by armies of amateur scribes happy to impart their views.

But one element of journalism has shown itself to be integral to the traditional media bundle on all its platforms and yet resistant to cavalier impersonation: the interview.

If content is king, then the interview is the bejewelled crown and its value has never been higher. When every news item and issue worthy of comment has been exhausted to death by the world and its websites by 9am, then what price do you put on a revealing and exclusive conversation with a leading politician or household celebrity that will then set the agenda for others to follow?

Just look at any magazine or supplement cover, newspaper page one blurb or TV bulletin and you can see that a big interview is still the consistent, fail-safe draw. Is it any wonder when you consider just how much knock-on interest and news stories are generated from a single, blindingly good interview?

The interview cannot be easily unbundled because it relies upon a precious, ephemeral ingredient that, thankfully, acts as a barrier to entry to the amateurs: ACCESS. Without that, there is nothing.

Access is only achieved through years of sweat developing contacts and trust, which in turn are only gained with a proven track record of delivering the goods. You can't just boot up a blog, grab a digital Dictaphone, then turn up at Claridges to shoot the shit with Jack Nicholson, or go to No 10 to un-spin Gordon Brown. Get in line. And that line is long and fiercely guarded.

I have been interviewing for 20 years and have the cassettes to prove it. More than two years ago I had the idea of launching a website, Access Interviews.com, dedicated to indexing and promoting interviews and the interviewers.

The idea came some time between Richard Branson stammering down the line to me from Necker in the British Virgin Islands and listening to the mind-numbing, jet-lagged inanities of the pop star Gwen Stefani. I did scores of other interviews during the time I developed the initial idea into what is now a complex, yet simple to use, website that aggregates links to the latest interviews available online. I will spare you the pain of the intervening cash-draining months of exasperation.

Access Interviews doesn't carry content, but instead it provides a platform for publishers, broadcasters and individual writers, to link their exclusives and attract a new audience to their websites, or hard copy. How useful is a global billboard such as this to a small circulation magazine with a valuable high-access interview to promote when its only publicity route in the past has been fighting for air on a choking rack, or leaking a story to newspapers with fingers-crossed for a name-check?

If you have an exclusive interview, load the link and Access Interviews automatically organises your ever-growing portfolio of work. Equally, it is becoming a reliable research tool for all users. Anyone who has tried searching for genuine interviews via Google or certain, over-priced hit-and-miss online libraries, will quickly see the benefits of a finely filtered system.

I have just finished my duties as a judge on the Interviewer of the Year category for the British Press Awards. There were 38 writers on the long-list. When you see a distilled package of UK's best newspaper interviewers, you can easily appreciate the skill and sheer hard graft of these writers. Often, interviewers such as this group get great exclusives which are ripped off and re-packaged by all and sundry across the internet.

With Access Interviews, the writers and their newspapers get recognised for their scoop. With the escalation in digital mimicry, surely it is vital to have an independent resource that respects copyright?

There is also an element of the Long Tail effect in indexing interviews. Traditionally, only the most credible magazines and trusted newspapers get genuine access for the big interviews, regardless of their miniscule circulations. Now, those titles and their prized interviewers have a global reach.

For example, I had never read an interview in Canada's Financial Post until it linked its big, pre-incarceration talk with Conrad Black to Access Interviews. Thousands of newspapers lifted quotes from that article without even crediting the source – but only the original piece lives on our website. The same is true when Newsweek got a major exclusive with Barack Obama recently and loaded the link. I would never have read it there, unless that simple route had been opened up. When I had the embryonic idea that would eventually mutate into Access Interviews, I needed expert advice. So, I did what every self-respecting journalist would do: I blagged an interview with the best-placed person to help.

It took five months to set up, but eventually I sat across a small white table from Nikesh Arora, the President of Google Europe and beyond. If you're gonna blag, blag big.

During the interview, with his corporate PR Rachel Whetstone sitting beside me, I requested the chance to pitch an idea. It took some chutzpah, but Arora graciously listened as I quickly outlined my cosmic plan in a few sentences.

It was like a pitching scene from The Player. Hilarious, looking back now. But my dream of circumnavigating the hardship that goes with creating a major website by flogging the idea for a few billion of Google dollars was just that, a dream. My idea – in its hollow form then – was not "scaleable" for Google, said the big chief.

But the ensuing interview with Arora produced many pearls of wisdom that helped me create Access Interviews. I was like a wide-eyed follower, breathing in the smoke as a mysterious shaman dispensed life-changing wisdom over blessed burning twigs. Now, the two questions you are all probably silently screaming as you scan these words are: How much did this site cost?

And how the hell is he going to make any money out of it?

I have financed it all myself and, so far, I am in for a medium-end five-figure sum and rising. It's a big website and they are expensive to build and run, but when you consider the scale and reach of such a media project, it is cheap.

Certainly, it will hurt a freelance like me if that cash turns to digital dust. I could end up having to write loads of interviews to recover – God forbid – but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Cue Rocky music.

As for making money: advertising is the obvious model as traffic grows, but I am more focused on attracting key brand endorsements for each of the interview categories, such as a major record label, or even iTunes, for the Music section; a movie studio or latest release for Films; a leading television company for TV and how about a little player for Sport like, er, Nike. Any takers for the Media category?

Rob McGibbon is a freelance journalist and the founder of www.accessinterviews.com

Press Gazette - 10 January 2008

Website aims to aggregate 'every interview since 1859'

By Dominic Ponsford

Celebrity interviewer Rob McGibbon has launched a website business which aims to provide a comprehensive index of journalistic interviews.

McGibbon, a freelance who has previously written celebrity interviews for Press Gazette, launched the aggregation website AccessInterviews.com last week.

He told Press Gazette he wants Access Interviews to become the definitive index to the world’s past and present interviews available on the web, and to serve as a promotional tool for publishers with exclusive interviews to attract new readers to their websites or print editions.

The website will also work as a rolling research archive for general users, PRs and journalists, and is also intended to provide a way for writers to collate their own portfolio of work.

McGibbon’s website does not carry its own content and is operated on an open editorial basis providing links back to the websites of newspapers, magazines, broadcasters and those of individual interviewers.

McGibbon has self-financed the venture after developing it for two years with website designers Mettic.

Access Interviews will be free to use and run on an advertising-funded model, although sponsorship is already lined up for specific elements of the site.

McGibbon hopes that Access Interviews will grow to become a global hub through which all interviews can be freely and independently sourced.

He said: “Interviews are a vital selling component for every media platform and this website provides a unique gateway to project that content beyond the confines of a magazine cover or news pages.

“Also, more interviews are appearing online as magazines and newspapers open up their archives. By generating the links to this content on an independent site such Access Interviews, publishers will attract new premium web traffic deep into their sites.

“I think this will have particular appeal to magazines that get amazing celebrity access but have modest print circulations and low web traffic.

“Journalists and web editors hold the keys to the archives, so I appeal to them to get digging and post the links.

“It has been a long – and expensive – struggle to develop Access Interviews but we have created what I think is a slick and sophisticated site with a huge capacity. My ambition is to archive every interview since the genre began in 1859.”

Access Interviews will also feature McGibbon conducting in-depth filmed interviews with celebrities and leading media figures.

First up is Andy McNab, followed by Andrew Neil and Felix Dennis. He promises that no questions will go “unasked”.