The key moment in the Dyke documentary was his conversation with Guardian columnist David Aaronovitch. He told Dyke that it was his own personal failing of needing always to win, which caused the original confrontation with government spin doctor Alastair Campbell over the Iraq dossier story to career out of control. He should have stepped back, taken a deep breath and promised to investigate the government’s gripe, Aaronovitch said.

When major corporations come threatening news people, the best tactic is to slow them down by listening politely, promising to investigate, and buy enough time to allow them to lose interest, or at least calm down. If you upset them before their first Starbucks of the morning, there is even greater value in playing for a little more time! Don’t know if Campbell is a coffee drinker, but his behaviour during that period indicated some deficiency.

I’ve had a couple of experiences where a non-confrontational tactic ends up with the accuser almost accusing themselves, at which point they realise what they were complaining about is harmless. The problem for journalism managers is that big confrontations don’t come very often, so you don’t get much opportunity to practice. Most, like Dyke, seem to follow the pattern of movie script martyrdom and insist that they stand by their story. Very few stories are worth it. But then, as in the playground, much of the posturing is a craving for attention, positive or negative. Good journalism, like so much, is not really about that. One of the more profound insights into this affair was written contemporaneously, by whom I now forget. The essence was that we are more outraged by accusations of bad things that we thought to do, but chose not to, than things we would not have dreamed of doing in the first place.

A follow-up interview with Dyke appears in the Grauniad today.

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