The Big Bumper Thread of Interviews and Chat Show Clips

[DanaC]

Oh, that interview was amazing. I posted a segment of it somewhere - couldn't find a clean version of the whole thing though except the Channel 4 one and didn't know if that would play outside the uk. Did you watch the full 30 minute unedited interview?

I really wanted to slap her. Like multiple times.

There's been a lot of commentary on it , some of which has been a bit focused on the 'Peterson destroys SWJ feminist interviewer' angle, but a lot of which has been a lot more nuanced.

What doesn't seem to have been picked up much is how that sits in the context of British news shows and how they do interviews. I've noticed over the last 10 or 15 years a particular style and approach to such interviews that seems to have been largely shaped by the giants of the late 80s-00s - Jeremy Paxman in particular.

Now Paxman at his height was something to behold - he was fierce and fearless and he forced the powerful to account for themselves . Then he became like a parody of himself - combative when it wasn't needed, artificially ramping up the adversarial nature of interviews.

That style is how interviews are done now. Some do it well but some are Cathy Newman or ....oh fuck what's his name - there's another interviewer that just really pisses me off with the 'so what you're saying is...' bullshit.

Adversarial interviews have their place - and sometimes, particularly when dealing with powerful politicians for example, it can be a good thing for an interview to ambush them into speaking truthfully - derail the party line they're towing. The trouble is it gets used indiscriminately against anybody who has been invited on as a controversial figure and in the wrong hands actively obscures the truth.