Palin isn’t the only politician from the north side of the the 49th parallel having trouble in TV interviews. Here’s an awkward video of a CTV interview with Stephane Dion, leader of the opposition Liberal Party, where he grows flustered and asks for several do-overs to what seems like a simple question on the economy.
It’s become quite the kerfuffle up north, with Dion and the Liberals upset that CTV decided to go ahead air the interview. It’s not clear to me whether CTV made any commitment not to air the early flubs, besides the tacit-at-most one they made by agreeing to restart the interview. But needless to say, this isn’t footage Dion, or any of his opponents, would want on air just four or five days before an election.
Clint, You are living in another world. You should join forces with Barry Gewen of The New York Times (Paper Cuts) who suppresses comments such as the following, on his entry "The Best Book on Terrorism?" I have e-mailed this comment to Philip Bobbitt of Columbia to see if he thinks it is too dangerous to publish.
#2. October 9, 2008 6:07 pm
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
There is no best book on terror since it has not been written yet and perhaps never will be. But "that one" is literate in effect and would certainly be a useful teaching tool. Ferguson has little to say about the accounts of the CIA in Bobbitt's book, nor does the Goldberg article, focused as it is on Vietnam, offer much in the way of analysis or questioning of how Bobbitt would help McCain realize his visions, such as they are. The chance that McCain will ever be able to enlist Bobbitt for any national post of the contemplated type is becoming increasingly remote.
"Terror and Consent" could have used a superior analytical index (the page numbers for the CIA are not even complete). The limitation of the book is that it is not original enough in the areas where it needs to be, on the empowerment of intelligence analysts to work on the future, not the past. For example, where is the university doctorate in intelligence in which students would work in the world's most powerful lab to learn plasticity in information cohesion and coherence, in orientation and adaptation to context, assumption, and non-linear information processing? How do we enhance original perception and the inspired alertness that would allow analysts to overpower such inherently feeble terrorist initiatives as 9/11, which only worked because of incoherent systems of intelligence?
We do not do it. We do not have the systems. Just inspect the debate at Language Log over Darling's statement on the health of the financial systems in the UK. People at the highest levels of university analysis in the US and in the UK do not consider context, ignore the implications of explanations, and follow the scent of their own assumptions into dead ends.
Where is the lab, at West Point or at Columbia U., where analysts would already have found the Language Log debate and be working on its pathologies? You will not find the answers in Bobbitt, beyond some vague material on TIA, re these fundamental matters of perception and information management that I have outlined here.
— Clayton Burns
So much for that. Dirtball ignorance at The New York Times is not unprecedented. You should ask me some questions about the Language Log thing, Clint.
And Clint, you just do not understand this Dion story at all. I am at ground zero on this, and I can tell that you have just passed your eyes over the ATV Murphy question, tossed at Dion like a live grenade, without letting your eyes dig into it at all. Skimming over the surface is the American problem. It gave you 9/11 the first, and will lead on inevitably to 9/11 the second. Here is the dope: The ATV-CTV coverage of Dion's inability to answer the nonsense question has to rate as the absolute low point ever in political journalism in Canada. There was some speculation at www.cjr.org recently that Canada might be a Banana Republic in terms of media practices, and the Murphy-Duffy butchery of Dion is proof. The Globe and Mail has been playing a transparently deceptive game during this election, making a pure pretense of objective coverage while torquing it in Harper's direction. If Elections Canada were not so incredibly weak, it would already have initiated a national investigation into this fixed election. The only question is about the direct or indirect inducements to The Globe and Mail and CTV to buy their support. Influence peddling and bribery were criminal offenses the last time I looked. The proof of the frauds is in the trick question ATV's Murphy asked Dion. Obviously, if I were to ask you what you would be doing about the economy if you were PM, that would be a legitimate question. Or I could ask you what you would have done over the last few months if you had been PM. But to present "were" and "now" in the condition and then go to a modal past perfect, such as "what would you have done," is a linguistic barbarism. Would you say, "If you were on the moon right now, what would you have done about your high school graduation ten years ago?" Of course not. That would be absurd. Just as stupid as the Murphy question, and the Duffy exploitation of it. Perhaps now CTV will entrap any candidate who speaks French, or any other language except for English as a first language, with bizarre conditions so as to suggest the candidate is not quite white enough, maybe even tainted with some bad non-Anglo blood. As for my interest in this matter, I have been critical of the Liberals in the past, as they are well aware. But after this miserable performance, I would never lend Harper a shovel in a snowstorm, speak to him, or even acknowledge a greeting. He is beyond the pale. An ignorant animal. As for Edward and Mike and the other scam artists at the G&M and CTV, I hope to see you go to prison for political corruption.
I await your questions, Clint. Once you have read the text carefully, you will have a few questions, at least. Even one penetrating question?
Posted by Clayton Burns on Fri 10 Oct 2008 at 08:02 PM
Clint, I have three formal questions for you that I hope you will take seriously and answer in detail. In fact, it is your duty to do so. I hope that you will answer the final personal question as well.
1.How could Murphy have plowed ahead with his impossible written condition--mixing "were" and "now" and a modal past perfect--when it was clear this bizarre and ungrammatical structure was causing Dion difficulty? How could anyone be so bad at interviewing? How could anyone be so insensitive to the English language? What other mistakes did Murphy make in this interview?
2.Does the United States take any responsibility for its huge factitious English business in SAT, TOEFL, and untold other parasitic products? How can Harvard itself be unable to break the slave chain with ETS and Kaplan?
3.How can journalism schools be so atrocious at teaching English skills? How do they manage to produce such robots as interviewers? Why don't they use good books, such as the COBUILD English Grammar and the Longman Language Activator, in an organized way?
And finally, on a personal note, were you not disgusted with Murphy's obvious incomprehension of the simple issue that Dion's first language is not English? Didn't you find Murphy so culturally insensitive that you cringed? Or do you feel like acting that way too?
Posted by Clayton Burns on Fri 10 Oct 2008 at 08:43 PM
I just read your lead story about Harper not taking too many questions and found these two consecutive sentences...
A Conservative official said the party is considering not having Harper take any questions from reporters on Sunday, or possibly a reduced number from his usual 10 questions.
The official said the move is being considered because of the prime minister's tight schedule, not because to avoid any embarrassing statements.
You guys need an editor
Posted by jim reed on Sat 11 Oct 2008 at 09:00 PM
here's my critique
http://www.reedwrites.ca/
Posted by jim reed on Sat 11 Oct 2008 at 09:04 PM
Jim Reed, Thanks for your comment and the link. Every journalism school in Canada should run a public day-long seminar on the ATV interview with Dion and the aftermath. You should be the lead speaker at as many of these seminars as possible. The very first thing a TV interviewer should learn is the conditional systems of English, and how to stay out of the insidious traps.
There is a useful Linguistics blog in the US, Language Log, but the lapses of Canadian academic comment on the ATV-CTV farce are indicative. On Saturday in WSJ there was a good article on how academics responded rapidly to the world financial crisis (with Internet essays).
It is too bad that we cannot attain to the same level of speed and utility in relation to comment on important Canadian language issues.
Posted by Clayton Burns on Sun 12 Oct 2008 at 06:14 PM
Clayton Burns said,
October 12, 2008 @ 6:53 pm
Ann, You are on the case. Here is one for you, and for the best Linguistics blog in the world, Language Log: the conditional question that caused the undying bonfire of uproar in the Canadian election now coming to a close.
"If you were a man now–right now–would you have eaten the snake to prevent it from tempting Eve in the garden of Eden if you had known that it was actually Lucifer with his long tail?"
Columbia Journalism Review has a wonderful blog entry–at http://www.cjr.org–on this most subtle of questions. It is always metaphoric when they frig in such a way with conditions.
If you solve this one for me, I'm going to be grateful for days, as long as I can remember the question.
That ATV anchor Murphy asked Liberal leader Dion what he would have done about the economy if he were Prime Minister now has paralyzed the Canadian federal election campaign. Unless you solve it (metaphorically), nothing can continue. Ever.
Posted by Clayton Burns on Sun 12 Oct 2008 at 07:04 PM
This is gutter journalism. Re-starts are common on pre-recorded interviews and it is an ethical breach to use the out-takes to sabotage a candidate a few days before the elections.
Truth is, Murphy fluffed the question. The phrasing was very poor and thus confusing. I am a native English speaker and found it very odd. To a Québécois such as Dion, the original phrasing clearly made no sense at all.
Posted by ScooterDE on Mon 13 Oct 2008 at 08:50 AM