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October 09, 2006
Journalistic smackdown
The New York Times sends its ace interviewer to grill Fox News' Chris Wallace, and the sardonic anchor makes quick work of the snarky, hostile Deborah Solomon.
Q: As the host of “Fox News Sunday,” you recently became a news item yourself by seeming to cause President Clinton to have on on-air meltdown. Do you think it was fair for you to mention that his administration had failed to capture Osama bin Laden?
A. I think it was a straight news question, and I think it just touched a very raw nerve. The business I am in is asking probing questions and trying to get interesting answers. I think I succeeded admirably in my job.
Q. The part that amazes me is that his outburst became national news. Is political discourse in this country so scripted and dull that if someone displays a flare of authentic emotion, it makes headlines?
A. This was Bill Clinton unplugged — the good, the bad and the ugly.
Q. I didn’t see it as bad or ugly. I saw it as a genuine expression of feeling.
A. You weren’t in the room.
Q. You became host of the show only three years ago, replacing Tony Snow, who later became the White House press secretary. Why did he leave television?
A. Because he was interested in becoming a radio star.
Q. That doesn’t sound very convincing.
A. I am sorry you’re not persuaded.
Q. What led you to take a job at Fox after decades in the news divisions at the major networks?
A. I used to sit in my office in ABC and have cable news on and wonder at the fact that for the vast majority of the day, ABC, CBS and NBC were in the selling-soap business, while the cable networks were actually doing news.
Q. But why go to Fox News, of all channels, which has been criticized for having a conservative bias?
A. I thought it got a bad rap from the national media and the chattering classes. It did a fair, aggressive and extremely watchable job of presenting the news during the day. People confuse the basic mission of Fox News for the political-opinion shows they have at night, which clearly are conservative.
[...]
Q. What political party do you belong to?
A. None of your business.
Q. Your father, the legendary newsman Mike Wallace, has been a vocal critic of the war in Iraq.
A. Is that a question?
Q. No, it’s a statement. After your father criticized President Bush recently, why did you say publicly that he had “lost it”?
A. I was teasing. Some people apparently don’t have much of a sense of humor.
Q. As the son of Mike Wallace, people assume that you had your career handed to you on a silver platter, but your life has not been so easy. Your parents were divorced when you were only a year old.
A. That’s true.
Q. And your brother, Peter, died tragically when you were in high school.
A. That is true. Growing up, it was my mother and my older brother and me against the world. He was on a summer trip in college to go around Europe. And he was in Greece, and went up to see a mountain — he had gotten interested in mountain climbing — and, in just a terrible tragic accident, slipped and fell and died.
Q. I’m sorry. How often do you think of him?
A. It’s 40-plus years later. You don’t think about it every day, but when you do, the wound is still raw. My oldest son, Peter, is named after my brother.
[...]
Q. If I have a follow-up question, may I call you tomorrow?
A. You’re done. I didn’t have an opportunity for a follow-up question with Bill Clinton. You get your chance, you take advantage of it.
"But why go to Fox News, of all channels, which has been criticized for having a conservative bias?" Oh, that's rich. As opposed to going to the ever-so-impartial NPR? Or the bias-free CBS? Or the never-prone-to-side-with-the-jihadis BBC? Or Al-Reuters?
Please. The question says a lot more about the interviewer than it does the interviewee.
And I love this exchange.
You became host of the show only three years ago, replacing Tony Snow, who later became the White House press secretary. Why did he leave television?
Because he was interested in becoming a radio star.
That doesn’t sound very convincing.
I am sorry you’re not persuaded.
Because, when you have an opportunity to interview Chris Wallace, what better time to discuss the motivations of another journalist? And Wallace's response it simply brilliant in its contempt and disinterest.
I can't think of a better example of the reasons why I've stopped reading the Times -- at least on a regular basis.
"Paper of record"? Not bloody likely.
Posted by Mike Lief at October 9, 2006 08:10 AM
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