When journalists bite spindoctors
It happens very rarely that American journalists actually carry out a penetrating interview - don’t forget Kieren’s post about the awfulness of US TV news, where they don’t actually tell you news - but the presidential campaign seems to have put at least one on her mettle. Fantastic interview here, or just watch it: the fireworks start about five minutes in, as ..er.. Ms Brown interviews some guy called Tucker, who is desperately spinning for the McCain campaign on Sarah Palin over the question of what on earth she actually did that was worth doing in Alaska:
Found at Ewan Spence’s blog, where he has a great comparison of the UK’s most vicious - yet fair - interviewers, vs the US.
Just for a reminder of how bad it can be. Kieren did have a clip that he said was almost parodic - but it’s been taken down. Hmm.
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- A quick survey: does anyone believe surveys? (27 July 2004; score: 37.59%)
- Sorry, but I'm not sympathetic to the Guardian's gap blogger (21 February 2008; score: 30.99%)
- PR treats journalists not as resources, but like car companies treat parts suppliers (updated) (5 February 2009; score: 25.66%)
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September 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
You know, much against my better nature, I have to give Tucker some credit for managing an impossible interview question quite well given he’d been caught totally on the hop.
Interesting though, you’re right, to hear an American interview hitting hard like that…
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
@Alexander: yes, but the fact that he could be caught on the hop indicates how slack their preparation was. They should have had chapter and verse about her experience, not just the “was governor in Alaska, had babies”. You need thorough background. It’s a really serious error by McCain, in my view - a rushed choice. That how you’re going to run the country, Mr McCain - rush to judgement and then back your mistakes? Hell, Obama’s lines write themselves.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I’ve been wondering why all the best political interviews I’ve seen during this campaign have been on the Daily Show or the Colpert Report. Even NPR is letting McCain’s pr folks get away with lies, such as this morning when they repeated the McCain’s campaign assertion that Palin had been properly vetted, despite all the evidence otherwise. Luckily Dish Network had a live feed from the democratic convention so you could watch the speeches uninterrupted, the regular cable news coverage was just awful. So far every time I tune in for the Republican convention it appears blacked out. It makes you wonder what they are talking about (and clearly from what I have seen, policies are not high on the list). Talking of which, plugging our our site for the moment, we’re blogging the conventions daily from a science perspective, visit http://blogs.physicstoday.org/politics08 for more details. We’ve already discovered that the green collar jobs are not so green afterall (unless you like coal).