Jonathan Liew: they’ll call you a c*** with some laughing emojis – brush that off
“This fucking microphone!”
Jonathan Liew, the Guardian’s freshly re-crowned SJA columnist of the year, known for his cutting insight and adept handling of complex issues, is grappling with a very simple piece of technology.
His face fills my screen as he struggles to plug a USB mic into his laptop.
I can still hear him.
“Yes, but can you hear me well? That is the question,” he replies.
This meticulousness typifies his approach to our conversation, his own work and, oddly, Countdown.
Liew is a Countdown octochamp – winner of eight consecutive games. Despite his image as one of sport’s great wordsmiths, those victories were earned through a combination of the exacting nature currently on display and, perhaps paradoxically, his extraordinary mathematical proficiency.
“I approached Countdown the same way Bradley Wiggins did the Tour de France. He knew he wasn’t going to race clear on the mountains, but he could hold his own and destroy everyone in the time trials,” he says, barely pausing for breath.
Given that his strength lay in numbers, he always picked six small figures and zero large ones with which to find a solution. That, readers may be aware, made things extremely difficult. When it came to words, however, it was not about keeping up with opponents, but weighing them down.
“Six consonants, three vowels, thereby minimising the chance of your opponent getting nine-letter words, which was basically the only way they could pull clear of you,” he says gleefully, again hardly breathing.
These tactics seemingly take all the fun out of Countdown, turning it into a game of joyless probabilities – the opposite approach he takes to journalism. Whether his articles are political or critical they are usually witty, wry and often enjoyably verbose.
He perfectly surmised the hubris surrounding the 2022 World Cup when he said: “This is happening. Matty Cash is going to Qatar, and to greater or lesser extents, we’re all going with him. Why? How? Why here? Why now? And – frankly – what the hell?”
Whether you like them or not, no one would describe his columns as ruthlessly or tediously efficient.
Nor would anyone describe his conversation as such. When given an opportunity to talk at length, Liew readily does so. The travails of a modern journalist are no exception.
“The number one thing you need these days as a writer is to be entertaining,” he says.
“There is so much content out there, so many people who want to produce it and attention spans are so short, people have a very transactional relationship with writing.”
So what’s his advice for budding journalists?
“If it’s not leading you to read the next sentence then you can write the most beautifully analytical, detail rich piece… but absolutely nobody’s going to get to the end of it.”
Liew often keeps his writing fresh by visiting art galleries before games.
“I don’t know what it does to the synapses, but it makes them more receptive to beauty and, therefore, more likely to produce beauty.”
He laughs at his choice of words.
“Writing does become this living thing, like a Tamagotchi, that you need to keep feeding and nurturing, that you care a lot about, even though it’s quite stupid and you know you’re going to throw it away.”
So why a career writing about sport when more lucrative options were surely out there?
“I have a lot of respect for war correspondents, court reporters, business journalists and people doing really important work,” he pauses again as a smile begins to break across his face.
“But it just doesn’t look as fun as what I do.”
The smile is now broad and full.
“We try to dignify what we do by saying ‘I think we give people joy’, but actually it’s just really fun covering sport,” he beams.
“When I was about eight my dad used to bring the newspaper home.”
Clearly mistaking me for a younger man, he jokes about whether I know what a printed newspaper is. I pretend not to be flattered.
He continues: “I’d spread it on the floor and I’d read all the football reports and I remember asking my dad ‘do these guys get to go to football for free?’ and my dad said ‘yeah’, and I said ‘well then I’d like to do that.’
“I never had any discernible sporting talent of my own so this was the next best thing. It was always my aspiration and so to actually get to do it for real is awesome.”
He nods quietly, lost in the moment for a second.
Liew has made for great company so far but this is the first time he seems truly absorbed in what he is saying. The dry wit has completely evaporated along with his self-deprecating tendencies.
I suggest it seems strange that he started his career at the Telegraph, given what I know about his political and moral compass.
“It’s one of those things that looks worse in retrospect,” he says. His dryness and wit are back.
“When I joined in 2008 I had a lot of respect for it. It was conservative leaning… but it wasn’t totally nuts, which I think it is now.”
He stresses that he is talking about the front pages and gushes about his time on the sports desk.
There was, however, an editorial shift circa 2016.
“They had this big meeting and they said: ‘there are two main growth areas for the future: rugby union and Brexit’,” he sighs.
So as Britain left the EU, Jonathan Liew left for the Independent.
He clearly isn’t someone who can be pushed around by editors with an agenda.
He has frequently called out other members of the press and even his own employers. Recently he criticised Jurgen Klopp’s behaviour at press conferences and the world’s reaction to Naomi Osaka’s avoidance of them. He also heavily criticised current-employers the Guardian for hosting its Football Weekly podcast in-person before Britain went into Coronavirus lockdown.
At this juncture our interview is interrupted because he needs to move rooms. He is coy about why. It transpires that it is so his cleaner can clean the room he was occupying.
Liew finds this incredibly embarrassing.
“Please don’t tell anyone I have a cleaner!
“We’ve got two kids. You know… like… you know,” he tails off.
Our conversation now pivots to race. Jonathan Liew is a rare kind of established print journalist in Britain: he is not a white man.
He doesn’t seem overly comfortable talking about this though. His sentences become shorter and his words more carefully chosen.
He doesn’t get treated differently in press boxes because of his heritage, he says. He has occasionally had stadium staff assume he is a member of a foreign press pack or that he was expecting to interview an Asian sportsperson. This was extremely rare and it doesn’t happen now he is established.
He pauses, thinking.
“You know, it probably helps with awards,” he says eventually.
What does he mean?
“I get shortlisted for things way beyond what I feel I deserve. Sometimes you wonder if it’s because they want to diversify the shortlist.”
Given that his journalistic talents are so widely heralded this seems unlikely.
Is he trying to be modest? It doesn’t seem so either. He appears genuine again.
What is clear is that he is aware of the whiteness of the sports journalism industry. It is probably impossible not to be. Since 2011, he has earned so many nominations and awards and white faces have been dominant among the other nominees.
Before he goes, we need to get a picture for his BeReal.
Disconnecting from the conversation for a second seems to encourage Liew to reflect.
“Sport is quite a silly thing to be doing,” he muses.
“Taken out of context, kicking, hitting or running around is quite a weird thing to do. So for me the beauty of it has always been the meaning that we impose upon it – and that can be anything.
“Don’t let anyone tell you how to like sport. Don’t let anybody else police what you find important and meaningful about it.
“Your writing might not reflect how somebody else sees it; they’ll call you a c*** with some laughing emojis. Just brush that off.
“Don’t let anyone tell you how to interpret the thing you love.”
Forget anything else. It is this final, unsolicited insight that is the best indicator as to why he receives so many plaudits each year – and why last night he was once again collecting a prize.
