The journalist who published thousands of Matt Hancock's WhatsApp messages hung up on a radio interview after getting into a heated row about leaking the story to a national newspaper.
Isabel Oakeshott, TalkTV’s international editor, has made headlines in recent days over her decision to leak a large quantity of messages sent by Mr Hancock when he was health secretary during the pandemic and when his lockdown-breaking affair was revealed.
On Friday, Ms Oakeshott got into a fiery clash with Cathy Newman, who started the Times Radio interview by asking Ms Oakeshott why she had shared the story with The Daily Telegraph rather than with her TalkTV colleagues or other organisations owned by News Corp.
Ms Oakeshott hit back at Ms Newman’s decision to focus on where the story was published rather than the WhatsApp messages themselves, and hung up after just a few minutes, ending the interview without answering a single question.
Ms Newman brought up an alleged “shouting match” between Ms Oakeshott and Harry Cole, the political editor of The Sun, which is also owned by News Corp. Ms Newman asked whether it was fair that “producers and reporters on a fraction of your salary are having to kind of put up with your sloppy seconds, and follow up on the story in a rival newspaper”.
Ms Oakeshott immediately fired back: “I’m just not going to go down this route, Cathy.”
She added: “I think people are much more interested in what the investigation reveals.
“Most of our listeners won’t know the individuals that you’re referring to. I think that it’s kind of absurd that you should be quoting wild figures about my contract with any news organisation. That’s my business, it’s not yours.”
Ms Newman persisted in her line of questioning, prompting Ms Oakeshott to repeatedly threaten to hang up. “I’m going to terminate the interview. This is my last warning, OK,” she said.
She then accused Ms Newman of being “unprofessional” and tried to turn the tables by asking Ms Newman how much she was paid.
“I haven’t hit the headlines. You’ve hit the headlines, Isabel,” Ms Newman said. “Well maybe if you broke some stories you would,” Ms Oakeshott shot back.
The interview ended when Ms Oakeshott hung up halfway through a question about her journalistic ethics. Ms Newman had been asking about Ms Oakeshott’s habit of leaking information given to her by sources.
