Posted by scrabble
on November 4, 2009, 3:37 pm, in reply to ""We should tell the truth about important things" - Noam Chomsky"
I've just done a (rough) calculation on how long Sackur spoke on Hardtalk as opposed to Chomsky. Up to the 19-minute mark of a 30-minute interview, Sackur spoke for just under 8 minutes and Chomsky for just over 11 minutes. These calculations were done with an ordinary wristwatch, so there's margin for error, though the proportions are as accurate as I could make them.
But what does it tell you about an interviewer's interest in his interviewee and in finding out his opinions when the questions and interjections take up almost as much time as the answers? If Sackur was really a responsible journalist doing an honest job of discovering what Chomsky thought, he would have allowed him the time (severely limited anyway) to express himself. But Sackur clearly had a fixed agenda and was determined to implant it, in what would have been perceived as a belligerent manner had it been a regular politician of either left or right, or a business leader on the receiving end of it. Speaks volumes that Sackur felt no qualms about employing this attitude against Chomsky but wouldn't have dreamt of it with an establishment figure.
Textbook example of embedded corporate bias ~ carried out quite unselfconsciously of course, without the slightest self-awareness. In fact I'd lay good money that Sackur would regard this interview as impartial and objective.
--Previous Message--
: Pity then that when confronted with Sackur's
: "fact" about Taliban-sheltered
: Jihadists from Afghanistan being responsible
: for 9/11, Chomsky only meekly responds that
: that is his belief too, with only the
: proviso that it's "only a belief".
:
: Chomsky could also have metioned that even
: five years after the event, the FBI still
: have no evidence linking Bin Laden to the
: crime of 9/11.
:
:
: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700687.html
:
: There can be no serious opposition to the
: Afghan war without first addressing its
: mythical cassus belli. With his cagey answer
: here, it seems Chomsky may have finally
: begun to understand this.
:
:
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