IT was 1992 and I was cutting my teeth in the world of broadcasting. I was helping out at a radio station in Blackpool, where I would go on to present programmes, read news bulletins and eventually be a part of the management team.

But in those early days I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, career-wise, so I acted like a sponge, soaking up all the knowledge and wisdom I could absorb.

One of the nuggets that stuck with me was: ‘you can tell any story in one sentence’. The point was that, particularly when it came to radio journalism, the top line of your story had to be punchy, to the point, and tell the essence of the story. And when you thought the story was too complicated to tell like this, it was an excellent exercise in focusing the mind and truly distilling what you were trying to say in a simple, but never dumbed down, way.

I was reminded of this last weekend when listening to a podcast. I love podcasts. I listen to a number about media, rather too many about Donald Trump and American politics, and a fair few about UK politics. I subscribe to what you could characterise as left-wing, right-wing and apparently neutral commentaries as I enjoy analysing their differing perspectives on the same stories, events and issues.

The podcast in question, in this instance, was by the FT. It was an interview with the Labour MP Lisa Nandy.

It was half an hour of conversation that had room to breathe. I found it a truly enlightening insight into one person’s take on why those who voted in favour of Brexit did so. It was calm and measured, and – to me – helped explain a lot of simmering issues.

Go look it up if you want to know more.

Why do I mention this?

Well, this week in the JEP, my series of interviews to mark 100 days since the General Election are spanning two pages of this paper each day. Reading them back, it struck me that there is room and, arguably, a need for these longer form pieces of journalism in a world where so much that is complex and complicated is reduced to a catchy headline or a nuance-free tweet online.

Hearing from, so far, the former Constable of St Mary, Juliette Gallichan, new politician Deputy Rob Ward, the Jersey Consumer Council’s Anne King, today the Co-op’s Mark Cox, and – tomorrow – the Anglican Dean Mike Kierle, has given me room to share some of their thinking, without the need to go searching for the ‘gotcha’ headline.

It’s been truly fascinating to get a greater sense, from each of them, of what they think of our new government and parliament in these early months of the ‘class of 2018’ States. But it’s also been rather depressing.

The recurring theme is a frustration at a lack of apparent action or progress on almost any front. As I write that sentence I can already hear the response from members of the Council of Ministers about their policy reviews reporting back by October. But I think that misses the point of the theme that has emerged, so far, this week.

As those politicians who didn’t stay behind to work through the summer months return to the office ready for the next States sitting in September, now’s the chance for them all to give us all a sense of what it is they plan to achieve in the coming weeks, months and years.

So far we’ve had a population debate shelved, plans to build a new hospital thrown in the air pending goodness knows what both a review and a planning inquiry determine, and ‘noises off’ from senior figures in Cyril Le Marquand House that the edict has gone out that nothing controversial will be tackled by the new Council of Ministers in at least the early stages of this parliament.

Well that’s not what we elected them for. Indeed the Chief Minister effectively signed up to swathes of the Reform Jersey manifesto when he struck a deal that resulted in 60% of the party’s elected politicians being given positions of power in the new government. That alone gives Senator John Le Fondré and the top table a ready-made to-do list. But, so far, so little.

Tomorrow, in the last of my week-long series, is an interview with the Dean of Jersey. It’s an insight you may never have read before. To hear God’s man in the Island talk about politicians with targets on their backs and using him as an agony uncle for both personal and professional counsel is quite a read!

It’s been a week where people have had a chance to air their thoughts beyond just a soundbite.

We’ve heard from an ex-politician, a new politician, a consumer champion, a business leader and, finally, a vicar.

With that 100 days landmark approaching tomorrow, I hope we will, very soon, also hear from those leading the government with their stories of how they’re actually making life better for every man, woman and child in Jersey.