Shortages are something we're all going to have to get used to shortly -- but one shortage that's surely struck most of us this election campaign is the serious shortage of decent political interviewers.
If you were to rank them in order of effectiveness, from very effective down to asinine, the first ten places would be difficult to fill, leaving the political classes much to much room to bloviate and spin.
So who do you find most effective in getting to the nub of an issue, in disallowing spin and getting down to substance? Which of them leave you more enlightened after a grilling, and which ones not enlightened at all? I suspect the best of them are to be found on radio...
5 comments:
Jeremy Paxman...oh, that's right, he doesn't live in NZ...
Greta van Susteren or Bill O'Reilly...oh, damn...
Lindsay Perigo...oh, that's right, he's not acceptable to the MSM anymore...
The best interviewer in my time, bar none, would have to be Lindsay Perigo - unflappable, intelligent and totally professional. The interesting thing looking back on old footage is that his political colours don't show through during interviews, whereas if you listen to Geoff Robinson and Sean Plunket on National Radio, the statist bias is so obvious.
The Good.
Jeremy Paxman, Tim Sebastian, Lindsay Perigo, Paul Henry. Graeme Hill. Sean Plunkett.
Also two chaps on Prime and Triangle, Noel Cheer on Prime (Who will be interviewing Bernard Darnton on November 11th & 13th) and Planet TV on triangle. Neither are particulary fierce, but I do like the fact that they give their subjects a good hour and don't talk all over them.
The Bad.
John Campbell, Mark Sainsbury, Kim Hill.
Musing about the qualities of current interviewers is like musing about new deck chairs for the titanic. Sure it is a problem, but it is symptimatic of wider philosophical corruption.
Dame Edna...
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