When Guardian journalist John Harris and novelist and former A&R man John Niven met with former Observer Music Monthly journalist Garry Mulholland to discuss the overlapping worlds of their disciplines, it didn’t take long to realise why their success has been in print rather than in person.

In an attempt to convince the youthful audience of his bad-boy credentials, Niven lamented at length about the “gak-fuelled” A&R days while Harris, a well-mannered, law-abiding chap from leafy Wilmslow, declared his admiration for ecstasy, both as (presumably no longer) a personal pursuit and as the “best drug of choice” for musicians.

For all his credentials as a writer Mulholland is not the man to be directing a debate. Journalists interview, listen to their interviewee’s answers, then (hopefully) re-present it as interesting copy. Debate chairs should jump in whenever the discussion lags or descends to platitudes, to keep it breezy, engaging and fun.

Harris tried his best to inject life. He relayed enlightening tales about the cocaine-fuelled idiocy in Oasis, how, when reviewing Be Here Now, he wasn’t allowed to discuss its merits with his family for sake of affecting wider “public perceptions”.

Niven disclosed a film adaptation of his novel Kill Your Friends was in progress and compared his plotting techniques, paraphrasing Kingsley Amis, to a Victorian journey from London to Edinburgh: you have some idea of the beginning and the end, but make the bits in the middle up as best you can.

The affable Harris closed, after some interchanges with Brighton’s own vitriolic spleen-maker Julie Burchill, with what was a revealing and enlightening report for the aspiring, idealistic young music hack in the back row.

Newspapers and magazines never pay the costs when a reporter is flown first-class to Hollywood or Japan, for example, for an exclusive band interview or album review. “Ah, so that’s why the NME never tears into bands any more?” she said. “No”, came Harris’s reply, “I know I’ve always tried to be professional with my opinions. But who can say these things don’t help you warm to a band?”