Gordon's Rebuttal Unit Spins Into Life

A government rebuttal unit spun into life somewhere in Westminster yesterday, running on biofuel, no doubt...

The IoS also carries a report that Gordon Brown is in favour of cutting Britain's carbon dioxide emissions targets...at the same time another story says that production of petrol made from sugar beet and diesel made from oilseed rape will help meet the target.

The exagerration at the opening of the report - "Every British motorist..." is rather irresponsible in my view. The article seems at pains to cheer for a positive environmental story, and I cannot help remaining somewhat cynical about it.

As a percentage the uptake will be fairly small...this is more about good PR for the oil multinationals and the government than anything. And I get the feeling that it is no coincidence that the "positive" story followed a negative one about the Chancellor and the emissions target.

Don't you just love a well spun story?

'It's all about bucks kid, and the rest is just conversation.' - Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's film, Wall Street.

Smearing Chomsky - Journalism or Cynicism?

An interview with Noam Chomsky in The Guardian has provoked heated debate on the message boards, on other blogs and it seems the email servers of the newspaper are sizzling as hundreds of readers vent their displeasure at seeing a respected thinker and academic rubbished by a young pretender.

An email sent by Diana Johnstone sets out the truth about the issue at the heart of the argument, but also points out the glaring lack of fact-checking or pre-interview research.

She has also interviewed Stephen Hawking and Gore Vidal in the past - and each time the tone of the interview seems to be sneeringly disrespectful. Brockes's CV reads like that of an ambitious and talented writer...but...

Take her interview with Tony Blair in 2002, for example. It starts as you would expect and then kind of descends from there, touching on family, kids, image...at one cringeworthy moment she asks something along the lines of 'don't you think Bush is an eejit?' Not very Paxman-esque, one concludes. Another earlier interview with Ariel Sharon is equally uninspiring.

Where is the question about New Labour's Thatcherite credentials, about being Michael Foot's protégé, about the threat of climate change, about the lack of competing political visions, about the short-termism of globalisation, about the individualisation, corporatisation and consumerisation of our world....about the kind of world Blair would like Leo to grow up in?

The approach Brockes takes towards Chomsky and Vidal betray a cynical attitude towards them and their ideas, but more importantly towards her readers. Perhaps her aim was to annoy those who admire and respect them. But it is also telling in that she was not so cynical with Blair, more fawningly awestruck.

Her interview with Blair takes the softly-softly approach, and perhaps she did this so she is in with a good chance when the opportunity to interview him for The Guardian comes round again.

Perhaps there is an undertone of irony or the deliberate arrogant disdain of youth that we are meant to get? If so, it is not very effective in my humble opinion.

As a journalism graduate myself, I admit to the odd flirtation with arrogant disdain myself, but in any of the situations in which Miss Brockes has had the good fortune to find herself, I would have done rigorous research, asked colleagues for any helpful pointers, and maybe even thought for a moment or two about what might interest the good people who would read the finished article.

It is easy to go into a situation with preconceptions and biases and fall into the trap of letting these get the better of your journalistic instincts. Chomsky and Vidal are most likely to command respect from many Guardian readers. Why not ask a question in the hope of showing a new reason to give that respect, or try to shine the light on some new aspect or angle of their thinking that others have not brought to light?

As for Blair, some Guardian readers probably have a sneaking admiration for him. Others, less so. But why not attempt to get some new insight from the Prime Minister on deeply important, weighty issues, rather than ask the kind of questions you might expect from an interviewer from The Sun?

A writer on Counterpunch has also written about the Chomsky interview here.

Meanwhile the Independent on Sunday mentioned the issue as well.

'It's all about bucks kid, and the rest is just conversation.' - Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's film, Wall Street.