Sam McAlister was the first in her family to go to university, before training to be a criminal barrister. As a single mum, she decided her real passion was in news. Now BAFTA-nominated for her work with BBC Newsnight, Sam’s hard-won exclusives have shaped the public conversation. Most notably, she is the woman who clinched the 2019 interview with Prince Andrew, described as ‘a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion’. Sam’s new book, Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC's Most Shocking Interviews, has recently been optioned for film. 

Among other things, Carter and Sam discuss her experience as a barrister, her ability to connect with people, and jumping into a book deal without any experience writing. At the end of their conversation, they delve into the mind of a character starting with a sentence out of Lost Lake by Emily LittleJohn.