Throughout its 20-year history Hot Press has courted controversy, particularly in its interviews with influential Irish figures. Hot Press took a distinctive approach to its interviews, sometimes returning two or three times to the interview subject until it was felt that the essence of the individual had been captured. It broke down some of the traditional boundaries which had previously existed between journalists and celebrities: its journalists probed at their subjects, drawing them out so that they revealed something of themselves which had not been seen before.
In 1984, it altered the relationship between politicians and the media in an extraordinary interview with former Taoiseach Charles Haughey. "I could instance a load of f*****s whose throat I'd cut, and push over the nearest cliff," Haughey told the interviewer, John Waters. The talent of the interviewer drew more from Haughey than the politician might have intended to reveal.
The former Bishop of Galway, Dr Eamonn Casey, almost cried as he discussed the issue of celibacy with his interviewer, Liam Mackey. Six years later, it was revealed that he had fathered a child, Peter, who was 12 at the time of the interview. The former Minister for Finance, Ruairi Quinn, confessed to Hot Press that he had tried cannabis, while Bertie Ahern told Hot Press that he would be able to drive after drinking a gallon of Bass ale.
Hot Press was also unusual in that it carried long interviews with leading republicans and loyalists in Northern Ireland at a time when other sections of the media did not do so. An interview with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in Hot Press was one of the factors that led SDLP leader John Hume to approach Adams and take the first steps towards the current peace process.
Not everyone has responded positively to the interview techniques employed by some of the Hot Press journalists. Ben Briscoe, the former Lord Mayor of Dublin, threw Hot Press interviewer Joe Jackson out of the Mansion House after he was asked what he would do if his son announced he was gay.
