Everyone wants to be Paxman...

On the Wednesday, I wanted to reach into my Tv and beat some sense into one of the interviewers on BBC World. He was interviewing the UK ambassador to the UN about the recent resolution on Darfur. Which was fine, and said ambassador was providing some interesting information... when the interviewer let him.

Of course, that wasn't terribly often. Our interviewer had clearly been watching Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight, and so knew just how an interview should be conducted. So, he opened with, "Aren't you disappointed at how this resolution has had to be watered down to placate the Chinese?" which struck me as being overly confrontational.

Still, the ambassador took it with good faith, and was actually answering, providing real information, when the interviewer decided to cut him off, and asked another confrontational question. Then another, and another.

I am vexed by this, because it does seem to be a rising trend in interviews. And the thing is, although Paxman has been known to interrupt an answer with another question, he generally only does this when confronted by evasive politicians who are carefully not answering. When the interviewee actually is answering, he's generally allowed to do so. And that's as it should be.

(On the other hand, I did have to cheer another BBC World interviewer yesterday, who was interviewing some American sports 'doctor', who had been convicted of doping, served time, and was now claiming some huge credit for working with the authorities at 'clean up' sport, probably as part of his settlement/plea bargain. Anyway, said 'doctor' was claiming huge credit for this noble gesture, while at the same time being utterly unrepentant and smug about his past actions, which he considered entirely fair since the testing schemes were "laughably weak". The question that earned a cheer was when our interviewer asked, "so, you don't feel at all bad about your time as a cheating drug dealer?" Huzzah!)