Media Breakfast at the Financial Times – Forward CEO shares his reflections on the first session

This was something of an experiment – bringing together some key policy experts, and journalists looking for background and context to the stories they are covering.

In our work, we deal with many serious journalists who want to understand the evidence and the ‘story behind the story’, but who have limited time when arranging interviews and chasing deadlines.

Our first media breakfast aimed to fill that gap by arranging for subject matter experts to present the latest thinking and analysis, and allowing for free flowing questions and discussion.

This first attempt focused on addiction – the growing prevalence and associated problems, and in particular, the unacceptable levels of drug-related deaths.

The expert speakers were Dame Carol Black (government special adviser on the drug strategy), and Caroline Copeland (Director of the National Centre on Substance Misuse Mortality), plus my humble self – and the Chairwoman was Tina Daheley from the BBC.

I think we have hit on a good formula. In just over an hour, a diverse group of senior journalists – from broadcast, print, and online media – engaged in vibrant discussion with experts in their field, and could explore questions more deeply than the normal interview setting.

So this discussion on addiction and drug policy will be the first of a series – the second edition will follow in the coming months and focus on a different topic (options under consideration are prisons and drugs, or the government’s ambition to get people on health-related benefits back to work).

I really learnt a lot from last week’s session, and will be looking forward to the next one.