Five Sentences This Political Reporter Never Thought He Would Say To Camera

Jonathan Swan is a professional journalist. He’s the national political reporter for Fairfax. Today, he was asked to interview a 16-year-old Queensland school student who has been accused of throwing a sandwich at Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and has been suspended for 15 days.

This was not a good day for Jonathan Swan. But he did a very good job.

 

1. “We’ve seen some grainy footage of a couple of sandwiches being thrown yesterday. Can you tell me what happened?”

Ummm. The Prime Minister came to school. Everyone like crowded her, shaking her hand, taking photos and that. And this teacher accused me of throwing a sandwich and yeah.

2. “You’ve been blamed for throwing the sandwich.”

–

3. “From what I understand, you were actually trying to protect the Prime Minister from the sandwich. Can you tell us about that?”

Yeah. Further down the path I’ve seen this kid with a sandwich in his hand. He threw one. Then I’ve seen him with another in his hand. So I hit it out of his hand. And yeah. That’s the only time I went at anyone with a sandwich.

4. “You in effect saved the Prime Minister from not one but two sandwiches yesterday.”

Basically.

5. “Some video footage exists which shows the sandwich airborne. How is that possible?”

Because there was more than one sandwich.

BONUS QUOTE: “Kyle, what do you actually think of the Prime Minister?”

Well she doesn’t have a big nose like everyone’s saying. She’s small. And yeah. Famous.