Oseni Rufai: Rudeness is Not Journalism, By Kay Lord

Oseni Rufai is trying to justify his rude and condescending style of interviewing by invoking Robin Day and Jeremy Paxman. This is interesting, because sometimes, in an attempt to defend yourself, you end up exposing the very thing you are trying to defend.

Oseni, the problem is not that you ask tough questions. The problem is the way you sometimes go about it. There is a world of difference between being intellectually rigorous and being unnecessarily rude. There is also a difference between holding someone accountable and behaving as though you are intellectually superior to the person sitting opposite you.

Robin Day and Jeremy Paxman were confrontational, yes. But their confrontational style was a means to an end, not an end in itself. They wanted answers, exposed contradictions and challenged evasions. Their reputation was built on the substance of their journalism, not merely on their ability to intimidate guests.

You cannot borrow the aggression of great journalists and assume you have automatically inherited their greatness.

The fact that Paxman repeatedly asked Michael Howard the same question does not mean every journalist who repeatedly interrupts a guest is practising Paxman’s craft. Context matters. Intention matters. The question itself matters.

When a guest deliberately evades a legitimate question, persistence is justified. But when a journalist interrupts, talks down to the guest and appears more interested in demonstrating superiority than extracting answers, what exactly are we celebrating? The journalism or the ego?

And this is where I think you miss the point entirely. Being confrontational is a technique, being effective is the skill. The former does not automatically guarantee the latter.

You cited Robin Day’s intellectual rigour and democratic integrity. Excellent! But why emphasise the aggression and give less attention to the discipline, fairness and intellectual depth that made his style effective?

You cannot cherry-pick the parts of their methods that suit your temperament and conveniently ignore the principles that gave those methods credibility.

Let me make this even simpler. A journalist is not on television to massage the ego of an interviewee. Absolutely not! But neither is the interviewee there to massage the ego of the journalist.

Your job is to ask questions, challenge answers, expose inconsistencies and hold people accountable. It is not to make every interview a contest over who can shout louder, interrupt more frequently or appear more intellectually intimidating.

Rudeness is not a substitute for rigour, just as aggression is not proof of intelligence.

Oseni, by all means, study Robin Day and Jeremy Paxman. But studying the techniques of great journalists does not automatically make one a great journalist, just as reading Shakespeare does not make one Shakespeare.

You do not become Jeremy Paxman simply because you scowl, interrupt and ask uncomfortable questions. If that were the qualification, television would be overflowing with broadcasting legends.

The real question is not whether you can make your guests uncomfortable. It is whether, after all the interruptions and confrontations, you have helped the audience understand the issue better.

Because if the audience remembers your rudeness more than the substance of the interview, perhaps the problem is not that people do not understand your style. Perhaps you need to understand the difference between a journalistic technique and a personal attitudinal problem.

Selah!

©Kay Lord, 011126