Gotcha Dull

There has been criticism recently at the way in which Tucker Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin. I do not agree with that criticism. Here is why.

Techniques of interviewing political figures have varied over the years. It used to be pretty respectful. These days, the prevalent method has been the relentless asking of aggressive pre-formulated questions, designed to trick the interviewee into saying something which can be presented the next day as a gaffe. Or at any rate, something which can be presented as running counter to the current shibboleths.

One can understand why journalists want to do this these days. They want to emulate greats of the past like Brian Walden, Jeremy Paxton and (without wishing to hasten his departure from the scene) Andrew Neil. It is perfectly true that these people did, from time to time, extract some juicy examples of telling nonsense from their interviewees. But this was by the by. Their main purpose was to provide insight into what their interviewees were doing, and why.