I think the only way to beat combative interviewers and win over the public in those instances is to be humorous and self-deprecating. If they're out to attack you with hyperbole, beat them to it.
On Jan 8, 2008 4:52 PM, Ian A Holton poeloq@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, 2008-01-09 at 00:23 +0000, doc wrote:
Jimbo very bravely granted an interview to the BBC's Hardtalk program. It's a twenty minute televised grilling by a well-briefed journalist with a tendency to go for the jugular.
You can watch it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/progs/07/hardtalk/wales_31dec.ram
The interviewer dragged up a negative comparison previously made by Britanica between wikipedia and a public toilet. Jimbo, later in the interview, chose to return to the analogy and extend it a bit to compare wikipedia to a clear public toilet:
I transcribe, with the usual disclaimers as to accuracy
Jimbo: "It is very similar to, well as odd as the analogy might be, this idea of a public restroom, it really is that you have no idea who just cleaned the toilet [something inaudible about the "fancy hotel" for the interview?] but, you know what, I'm sure it's clean, right, because the hotel has a good reputation I don't need the name of the person who did it, right, I know there's processes in place and it seems perfectly
fine"
....[interviewer is astonished at the bold comparison].....
Jimbo "It's a good clean public toilet"
Not sure how wise the self-depreciating humour is. It didn't exactly work out for [[Gerald Ratner]]....?
Doc
Thanks Doc for the link and transcription, anybody know if it's possible to watch it under Linux?
Ian [[User:Poeloq]]
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