Guardian rebranding exercise continues....
The Guardian’s interview with Noam Chomsky, published last week, has generated something of a controversy. The ever-impressive Medialens subsequently produced an article on the subject, accurately titled “Smearing Chomksy: the Guardian in the Gutter”. Its worth reading in full, as is all their work, but I’ll summarise the issue here.
In the interview, the Guardian’s Emma Brockes wrote that “Chomsky’s “conclusions remain controversial”, particularly “that during the Bosnian war the ‘massacre’ at Srebrenica was probably overstated. (Chomsky uses quotations marks to undermine things he disagrees with and, in print at least, it can come across less as academic than as witheringly teenage; like, Srebrenica was so not a massacre.)”
The problem for Brockes, and the Guardian editors, is that Chomsky has never described Srebrenica as a “massacre” and has never denied that a massacre took place. Now, over a week later, the Guardian has still not responded to repeated requests that it produce the source of the claim that Chomsky has used the word "massacre" in quotes in respect of Screbrenica, or that he has ever said anything to the effect of “Srebrenica was so not a massacre”. Its unsurprising that the source has not been produced since, has Chomsky has subsequently pointed out “[Brockes] and the editors know perfectly well that there is nothing like that in print, or anywhere, certainly not in the interview: people don’t speak with quotation marks. That’s why they allowed her to refer vaguely to the phrase she invented, so as to insinuate that it is in print—which she knows, and the editors know, is a lie.”
Not content with this, the Guardian published two letters the next day, presented as being in defence of Chomsky but actually defending a position that he had never taken in the first place, as the Guardian knew full well. Thus the lie was reinforced. As Chomsky told Medialens, “I have to say that these letters disturb me as much or more than the original deceit—which worked, as the letters show. Both writers assume that there is a ‘debate,’ as the editors falsely claimed, in which I question the massacre (or as they pretend, ‘massacre’) in Srebrenica. That is all fabrication, as the editors know well. They labored mightily to create the impression of a debate in which I take the position they assigned to me, and have succeeded. Now I’m stuck with that, even though it is a deceitful invention of theirs.”
The next day, the Guardian published a response from Chomsky, but only after having insisted that he delete the word “fabrication” from it. Then, exhibiting an unsettling level of commitment to that same fabrication, the Guardian published Chomsky’s letter alongside another, this time from a survivor of the Omarska concentration camp, attacking Chomsky for his views on Srebrenica; views which had been faked by the Guardian. Thus the fabrication, which the paper insisted could not be mentioned, had been reinforced yet again. According to Chomsky, the Guardian’s “legal department insisted that I delete the word ‘fabrication,’ [from the letter] and I agreed. Mistakenly I now realize, after seeing how low they can sink. I should have insisted on the word ‘fabrication,’ and given the most obvious example: [Brockes’] piece de resistance, the claim that I put the word ‘massacre’ in quotes. Sheer fabrication. [But] Apparently that’s OK by the standards of their legal department, and their journalistic ethics.”
All in all, a pretty rancid piece of journalism.
Medialens recommend that people write to the Guardian asking them to provide the source for Brockes’s claim that “Srebrenica was so not a massacre” in Chomsky’s view, and asking them why they have so far failed to respond to emails. I’m told that the paper has been flooded with emails to this effect. Here’s what I wrote:
To: Alan Rusbridger (Guardian editor)
Cc: Emma Brockes, Ian Mayes (the paper’s ombudsman), Medialens
Subject: Chomsky Interview
I am writing in respect of Emma Brockes' interview with Noam Chomsky dated 31 October 2005. As a Guardian reader of nearly twenty years I would be very interested in your answers to a few questions that I have on the interview.
Please let me know why you have failed to provide the source for Brockes’s claim that “Srebrenica was so not a massacre” in Chomsky’s view. Please let me know why you have so far failed to respond to emails from other concerned readers on this point. This is an extremely serious allegation to make and, as a serious newspaper, one ought to be able to take it for granted that you have something that at least resembles proof.
Chomsky has described the false position you assigned to him as a "deceitful invention" on your part. There is no question of this being inaccurate since it is plain that Chomsky does not deny, or even question that there was a massacre at Srebrenica. Why then, having pretended that he does, did you compound that lie by, on 1 November 2005, publishing letters in defence of Chomsky's invented views on Srebrenica? In other words, why did you not retract but actively reinforce the lie that, "there is a ‘debate,’ as the editors falsely claimed, in which I question the massacre (or as they pretend, ‘massacre‘) in Srebrenica" (to quote Chomsky)?
Why then, having persuaded Chomsky to drop the word "fabrication" from his letter responding to the interview, did you publish that letter, on 2 November 2005, together with another from "a survivor from Bosnia, which, as the editors certainly know, is based entirely on lies in the faked ‘interview’"? (again, quoting Chomsky). That letter purported to give the other side of a non-existent debate by attacking a view that Chomsky does not hold.
Why, in summary, have you made such a dedicated effort to pretend that Chomsky denies or questions the massacre at Srebrenica when it is plain that he does not? Why are you going to such extraordinary lengths to misrepresent him? Most Guardian readers welcome the opposing point of view, and I'm happy to read any amount of reasoned, fact-based criticism of Chomsky in the Guardian or anywhere else, but lets not pretend that this is what's at issue here.
Whilst the views expressed by Brockes were of an quality that would embarrass a mid-market tabloid, lack of intellectual substance need only be a problem for the writer and the editors. A moderately intelligent reader can see through this and make their own judgement. Lying, however, or deliberately presenting a falsehood as fact, is quite a different matter. Whilst I have become aware of this particular fabrication, I am now forced to consider what other deceits, inventions and falsehoods I may have read in the Guardian and taken to be true. From the point of view of the consumer, trust in the integrity of one's chosen news source is always the bottom line. There's little value in reading material that only purports to be true, unless of course one only purports to wish to be informed. If the Guardian does not acknowledge and retract this particular fabrication, there is no reason for trust in it to be restored and, given the availability of the global media via the internet, no reason to persevere with it.
Please let me have your answers to these points as soon as possible. I am copying this email to Medialens and posting it on my own website.
In the interview, the Guardian’s Emma Brockes wrote that “Chomsky’s “conclusions remain controversial”, particularly “that during the Bosnian war the ‘massacre’ at Srebrenica was probably overstated. (Chomsky uses quotations marks to undermine things he disagrees with and, in print at least, it can come across less as academic than as witheringly teenage; like, Srebrenica was so not a massacre.)”
The problem for Brockes, and the Guardian editors, is that Chomsky has never described Srebrenica as a “massacre” and has never denied that a massacre took place. Now, over a week later, the Guardian has still not responded to repeated requests that it produce the source of the claim that Chomsky has used the word "massacre" in quotes in respect of Screbrenica, or that he has ever said anything to the effect of “Srebrenica was so not a massacre”. Its unsurprising that the source has not been produced since, has Chomsky has subsequently pointed out “[Brockes] and the editors know perfectly well that there is nothing like that in print, or anywhere, certainly not in the interview: people don’t speak with quotation marks. That’s why they allowed her to refer vaguely to the phrase she invented, so as to insinuate that it is in print—which she knows, and the editors know, is a lie.”
Not content with this, the Guardian published two letters the next day, presented as being in defence of Chomsky but actually defending a position that he had never taken in the first place, as the Guardian knew full well. Thus the lie was reinforced. As Chomsky told Medialens, “I have to say that these letters disturb me as much or more than the original deceit—which worked, as the letters show. Both writers assume that there is a ‘debate,’ as the editors falsely claimed, in which I question the massacre (or as they pretend, ‘massacre’) in Srebrenica. That is all fabrication, as the editors know well. They labored mightily to create the impression of a debate in which I take the position they assigned to me, and have succeeded. Now I’m stuck with that, even though it is a deceitful invention of theirs.”
The next day, the Guardian published a response from Chomsky, but only after having insisted that he delete the word “fabrication” from it. Then, exhibiting an unsettling level of commitment to that same fabrication, the Guardian published Chomsky’s letter alongside another, this time from a survivor of the Omarska concentration camp, attacking Chomsky for his views on Srebrenica; views which had been faked by the Guardian. Thus the fabrication, which the paper insisted could not be mentioned, had been reinforced yet again. According to Chomsky, the Guardian’s “legal department insisted that I delete the word ‘fabrication,’ [from the letter] and I agreed. Mistakenly I now realize, after seeing how low they can sink. I should have insisted on the word ‘fabrication,’ and given the most obvious example: [Brockes’] piece de resistance, the claim that I put the word ‘massacre’ in quotes. Sheer fabrication. [But] Apparently that’s OK by the standards of their legal department, and their journalistic ethics.”
All in all, a pretty rancid piece of journalism.
Medialens recommend that people write to the Guardian asking them to provide the source for Brockes’s claim that “Srebrenica was so not a massacre” in Chomsky’s view, and asking them why they have so far failed to respond to emails. I’m told that the paper has been flooded with emails to this effect. Here’s what I wrote:
To: Alan Rusbridger (Guardian editor)
Cc: Emma Brockes, Ian Mayes (the paper’s ombudsman), Medialens
Subject: Chomsky Interview
I am writing in respect of Emma Brockes' interview with Noam Chomsky dated 31 October 2005. As a Guardian reader of nearly twenty years I would be very interested in your answers to a few questions that I have on the interview.
Please let me know why you have failed to provide the source for Brockes’s claim that “Srebrenica was so not a massacre” in Chomsky’s view. Please let me know why you have so far failed to respond to emails from other concerned readers on this point. This is an extremely serious allegation to make and, as a serious newspaper, one ought to be able to take it for granted that you have something that at least resembles proof.
Chomsky has described the false position you assigned to him as a "deceitful invention" on your part. There is no question of this being inaccurate since it is plain that Chomsky does not deny, or even question that there was a massacre at Srebrenica. Why then, having pretended that he does, did you compound that lie by, on 1 November 2005, publishing letters in defence of Chomsky's invented views on Srebrenica? In other words, why did you not retract but actively reinforce the lie that, "there is a ‘debate,’ as the editors falsely claimed, in which I question the massacre (or as they pretend, ‘massacre‘) in Srebrenica" (to quote Chomsky)?
Why then, having persuaded Chomsky to drop the word "fabrication" from his letter responding to the interview, did you publish that letter, on 2 November 2005, together with another from "a survivor from Bosnia, which, as the editors certainly know, is based entirely on lies in the faked ‘interview’"? (again, quoting Chomsky). That letter purported to give the other side of a non-existent debate by attacking a view that Chomsky does not hold.
Why, in summary, have you made such a dedicated effort to pretend that Chomsky denies or questions the massacre at Srebrenica when it is plain that he does not? Why are you going to such extraordinary lengths to misrepresent him? Most Guardian readers welcome the opposing point of view, and I'm happy to read any amount of reasoned, fact-based criticism of Chomsky in the Guardian or anywhere else, but lets not pretend that this is what's at issue here.
Whilst the views expressed by Brockes were of an quality that would embarrass a mid-market tabloid, lack of intellectual substance need only be a problem for the writer and the editors. A moderately intelligent reader can see through this and make their own judgement. Lying, however, or deliberately presenting a falsehood as fact, is quite a different matter. Whilst I have become aware of this particular fabrication, I am now forced to consider what other deceits, inventions and falsehoods I may have read in the Guardian and taken to be true. From the point of view of the consumer, trust in the integrity of one's chosen news source is always the bottom line. There's little value in reading material that only purports to be true, unless of course one only purports to wish to be informed. If the Guardian does not acknowledge and retract this particular fabrication, there is no reason for trust in it to be restored and, given the availability of the global media via the internet, no reason to persevere with it.
Please let me have your answers to these points as soon as possible. I am copying this email to Medialens and posting it on my own website.
Regards
********
Update - 14 November 2005: yesterday Chomsky issued an open letter on the controversy surrounding the Guardian interview. Gives some interesting commentary on the way the article was presented in print. Chomsky describes the Guardian piece as “an exercise in defamation that is a model of the genre”. He also says that “in probably thousands of interviews from every corner of the world and every part of the spectrum for decades, [the] thought [of making my own tape recording of an interview] has never occurred to me before. It does now.”
********
Update - 16 November 2005: the Guardian have now posted the following message at the top of the version of the Brockes interview that appears on their website:
"A note to readers: On November 2 the Guardian published a letter from Noam Chomsky in which he was strongly critical of the interview below. Subsequently Professor Chomsky complained to the readers' editor about the interview on a number of specific points. The readers' editor has been investigating the complaint and has been in direct correspondence with Professor Chomsky. The readers' editor will publish his findings when the matter is resolved."
********
Update – 18 November 2005: yesterday The Guardian published an “unreserved apology” to Noam Chomsky for claiming “that Prof Chomsky considered the word [massacre] inappropriate [in respect of Srebrenica] or that he had denied that there had been a massacre. Prof Chomsky has been obliged to point out that he has never said or believed any such thing. The Guardian has no evidence whatsoever to the contrary and retracts the statement with an unreserved apology to Prof Chomsky.”
In truth, the apology isn’t entirely unreserved. The paper’s line is that this was an unfortunate misunderstanding. Pretty hard to believe. For example, the paper published this news piece commenting on the story, in which it said “After the interview appeared, [Chomsky] told the Guardian that he supported Ms Johnstone's rights to freedom of speech and that he had never denied the fact of the Srebrenica massacre”. But, according to Chomsky, this was explained to the Guardian not after but during the interview, with his views then being misrepresented in the paper after the event.
In truth, the apology isn’t entirely unreserved. The paper’s line is that this was an unfortunate misunderstanding. Pretty hard to believe. For example, the paper published this news piece commenting on the story, in which it said “After the interview appeared, [Chomsky] told the Guardian that he supported Ms Johnstone's rights to freedom of speech and that he had never denied the fact of the Srebrenica massacre”. But, according to Chomsky, this was explained to the Guardian not after but during the interview, with his views then being misrepresented in the paper after the event.
The correction says “Ms Brockes's misrepresentation of Prof Chomsky's views on Srebrenica stemmed from her misunderstanding of his support for Ms Johnstone”. Pretty humiliating for Brockes to be hung out to dry by her editors like this, but blaming her incompetence alone seems a little generous, to them and to her. Its hard to believe that a national newspaper, when claiming that someone is the moral equivalent of a Holocaust denier, doesn’t at least carry out some sort of factual/legal check first, rather than rely purely on the reporter’s understanding. Did they carry out these checks and then try and skirt round them when they came up with the wrong answers? Recall that the letters page over the next two days reinforced the original lie. In the correction, and in the editor’s email to those of us who complained, mention is made of the fact that they published Chomsky’s letter attacking the interview, whilst ignoring the fact that they had him remove the word ‘fabrication’ first, presumably on legal grounds. Rusbridger’s email, which must surely have been signed-off by lawyers, finishes by saying “I believe Professor Chomsky's concerns about a wider editorial motive behind the interview, suggested in an open letter, are wholly without foundation.” The first two words of that sentence positively reek of a lawyer’s involvement.
So my suspicion remains that Brockes and her immediate superior (at the very least) tried to do a hatchet job and got found out. The tone of the whole interview suggests this. Her representation of Choomsky’s views on the Khmer Rouge are a lie in all but the technical sense of the word (see my notes in the comments section). Still, the apology was certainly lengthy and detailed, “unreserved” on the single, most crucial point, so short of demanding that Rusbridger and Brockes perform ritual self-disembowelment to atone for bringing dishonour to the Scott Trust we should probably be satisfied with this.
posted by David Wearing at 3:22 PM
20 Comments:
Emma Brockes had another interview published today with minor celebrity and nude model Gail Porter. Compare the subheadings in this case ("Q: Aren't you too brainy to be a TV presenter? A: Too brainy? That's why all my hair fell out") to the Chomsky interview ("Q: Do you regret supporting those who say the Srebrenica massacre was exaggerated? A: My only regret is that I didn't do it strongly enough"). The first is positive and in context, the second is negative and out of context.
To be fair, I’d expect Chomsky to get a more searching interrogation than Gail Porter. I’d expect both of them to get a fair one though.
No doubt Brockes feels much more comfortable at this level. She’s said in the past that she finds Chomsky “hard work”. That raises rather obvious questions about her ability to interview him, I would have thought. Those questions were answered in the interview itself, which contained such cerebral insights as “Such is the effect of an hour spent with Chomsky that, writing this, I wonder: is it wrong to mention the fig rolls when there is undocumented suffering going on in El Salvador?” (Hmmm. Good question, Emma).
Whilst people have focused on the outright lie that Chomsky denies or questions the Srebrenica massacre, what’s hardly any less cynical and dishonest is Brockes’ saying that Chomsky thinks “that in the overall context of Cambodian history, the Khmer Rouge weren't as bad as everyone makes out”. One need only contrast this with what Chomsky actually said about the Khmer Rouge to get the true measure of Brockes and her editors. This just speaks for itsself and needs no elaboration from me. Just follow the link.
Finally its worth contrasting how Brockes and the Guardian treat a man who has spent 40 years exposing atrocities (i.e. by pretending he covers them up) with how they treat a man who is personally responsible for thousands of innocent deaths. In 2001, Brockes interviewed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: the man held responsible by a judicial commission for massacres at refugee camps in Lebanon, and who by any measure has the blood of thousands of innocent Palestinians on his hands. Brockes puts this to Sharon, and….. “Sharon tutts dismissively. "They can accuse us as much as they want to." The car stops. "You want to see some sheep?"
After standing with the sheep for a while…..”
Yes, that’s it. Well done Emma Brockes. Truly fearless reporting.
Other tough questions included “I wonder how Sharon would go about capturing Bin Laden if he was commanding Britain’s special forces? (As a 25 year old he commanded Special Unit 101, which undertook just this sort of operation)”, omitting to mention that Special Unit 101 was a terrorist death squad. We’re also treated to this sympathetic insight: “It is tempting to speculate that the personal risk that Sharon has lived under for practically all of his life has influenced his political decision-making”. Decisions like allowing or ordering the mass murder of innocent civilians, presumably. Would, say, a war criminal from the Balkan conflict get similar kid glove treatment?
As I said, pretty rancid journalism.
Particularly outstanding is Brockes concise critique of Chomsky's and Herman's Propaganda Model: "I would argue individual agency overrides this, but get into it with Chomsky and your allocated hour goes up in smoke." A weak argument that the model effectively takes into account (serious dissenters tend to be filtered out of the media), followed by an equally weak reason not to put her argument to him. Her interview was almost as bad as Penn and Teller's (the Free Market Magicians of the Cato Institute).
On a different note, I suppose you have seen the Italian documentary on Fallujah? (There is an English language version available.) I don't think the Guardian has mentioned it -- the BBC has (and changed it several times) and so has the Independent. Media Lens have badgered the BBC to cover this story for some time -- and when they finally did, they played it down ("Rai says this amounts to the illegal use of chemical arms, though the bombs are considered incendiary devices.") and ended with a piece of pure propaganda ("President Talabani and the US say the continued presence of multi-national forces in Iraq is essential."). Makes the Chomsky smear look insignificant by comparison.
On reading the article the first reaction is that Emma Brockes is only exposing her own stupidity. It remind me of the interview in The Independent of Antonio Negri, by Johann Hari. This was another example of what is meant to be a cutting critique actually leaving you with the impression that a very intelligent person had had his time wasted by an idiot.
What is more worrying than the fact that such bad writers get jobs in national broadsheets is, however, that both the Independent and the Guardian have reputations for being the 'liberal' papers in the UK. Such childish smearing of the reputations of prominent radical writers is perhaps another example of how those who really want to put themselves in a radical position have more to fear from 'liberals' than the conservatives.
Moll – I think in your second paragraph you really hit upon the crux of the issue. This isn’t just about Chomsky’s reputation or the Guardian lying. The effect of this is to help exclude Chomsky and, crucially, his ideas, from the arena of public debate. As you point out, this is the liberal extreme of the mainstream press bringing down the barriers by marking out Chomsky as being, basically, beyond the pale.
Chomsky’s critique of the world’s prevailing political economy is not his alone. Perhaps more than anyone, he articulates the views of what’s been called the Global Justice Movement; which includes everyone from anti-war activists in London to the Zapatistas in Mexico to the government of Venezuela. This movement’s ability to persuade centre and centre-left voters in the global north is absolutely crucial to its chances of success. Those people are the Guardian’s constituency, and the Guardian’s just told them, in pretty clear terms, that one of the movement’s chief proponents is a crank and a hypocrite who’s prepared to indulge in the moral equivalent of Holocaust denial to push his political dogma.
Nagging Doubt – you say that the Fallujah film is a more important issue. I wouldn’t like to rank them, but I’d point out that the Chomsky issue needs to be seen in its context. We’re going to have precious little chance of getting across the message that war crimes are occuring in Iraq when criticisms of that nature are effectively excluded from public debate. Even when the facts are brought to light, these can easily be contextualised as understandable misjudgements or mistakes made by our fundamentally well meaning leaders (which is the ‘left’ liberal position of the Guardian, at the edge of the mainstream). Central to our ability to expose the atrocities of the occupation is our ability to state clearly, in the arena of public discussion, that the occupation is a crime, not a mistake, and that these war crimes are not an aberration, but an expression of the fundamental nature of the western political economy.
If that seems like a challenge, its worth returning to the Brockes interview and making a simple observation. In order to present Chomsky and his ideas in the way that she did Brockes had to lie, distort and avoid any substantive discussion on the merits of the ides themselves. That’s an open admission of weakness, and a reason for optimism on our part.
On the Falluja film, I’ve not seen it yet but I get my broadband connection this weekend so I’ll have a look then. I seem to recall several eyewitnesses testifying at the time to war crimes being committed in Falluja. Of course, its hard to imagine eyewitness testimony of a terrorist attack on a western capital being treated as unreliable by definition and buried in quite the same way as any Iraqi comment on US/UK wrongdoing.
Of course you are right that the attack on Chomsky is important. But I can't help but feel that given the Guardian's lack of interest in credible evidence of US war crimes, and the need for an immediate withdrawl of troops, that the Chomsky issue is a minor diversion by comparison. The older a story gets the more easily it is dropped as "old news". I can only hope that as many people sending e-mails to the Guardian in defence of Chomsky sent e-mails about the Guardian ignoring the Fallujah film.
As for the film, I hope you have a strong stomach. You should also consider watching/listening to the Democracy Now coverage of the Fallujah story. It interviews the one co-producer of the Italian film, and one of the former US soldiers interviewed in the film. It is also interesting to hear what the Pentagon PR man (who didn't even bother to watch the film) has to say. Amy Goodman (the host) is what most people believe Jeremy Paxman is really like, and she doesn't let the PR man get away with his evasions.
If Chomsky supports Diana Johnstone's right to publish "wrong" work [his description], why is he not supporting Brockes right to publish her "wrong" work?
Dmatr - I note that you're quoting from the Brockes interview, of which Chomsky's said "Even when the words attributed to me have some resemblance to accuracy, I take no responsibility for them, because of the invented contexts in which they appear."
And even if we were to ignore this, for some reason, I think we can quite easily differentiate between a scientific study whose conclusions turned out to be inaccurate and “an exercise in defamation that is a model of the genre”. The word 'wrong' means rather different things in these two contexts.
Nagging Doubt - to repeat, the Chomsky issue needs to be seen in its context. As you know, these war crimes are an expression of the fundamental nature of the western political economy. Until that reality is widely understood and dealt with, crimes like these will continue to be committed no matter how many times they're exposed (as they have done - in Vietnam for example - up til now). For the the most left-leaning paper in the English speaking world to cast the leading proponent of that critique of the western political economy outside the realms of acceptable debate is not "a minor diversion". It is a serious assault on our attempts to be tough, not just on crime, but on the causes of crime, to paraphrase one of the criminals.
As for the war crimes themselves, and the media silence that surrounds them; I’ve written, and will continue to write, a great deal on these subjects. See my next article, coming later in the week.
As Chomsky has said himself, he is virtually unknown outside of radical circles. Almost no one reads his work unless they already know who he is and agrees with his views. I like Chomsky, and agree with the vast majority of what he says, but I also find the cult of celebrity that has sprung up around him deeply disturbing. And so does he (or at least he finds it baffling, see below*). Most disturbing is that a lot of his most fervent followers just don't listen to what he has to say. For example, given his outspoken criticism of intellectuals, doesn't it seem a little odd that we was voted in a poll in Prospect the worlds leading intellectual? But not as odd as Chomsky, an anarchist, being voted fourth in a poll by the BBC to lead a fantasy world government.
Chomsky's latest article on ZNet sums up his own position on the matter: "It is a nuisance, and a bit of a bore, to dwell on the topic, and I always keep away from personal attacks on me ... [but] provides a useful model for studies of defamation exercises ... [and] also, perhaps, provides a useful lesson for those who may be approached for interviews by this journal. ... The rest is mostly what one might expect to find in the scandal sheets about movie stars, familiar from such sources, and of no further interest."
I can't help but think, given what Chomsky has written himself, that he would prefer people to concentrate on more important issues.
* Chomsky on some of his misguided followers:
[From an interview on Manufacturing Consent]
ANOTHER WOMAN: Now I've got to admit it -- I felt odd having you sign a book for my friend earlier today.
CHOMSKY: Yeah, it's crazy -- it's just completely wrong. In a place like San Francisco, it gets embarrassing: I can't walk across the Berkeley campus -- literally -- without twenty people coming up and asking me to sign something. That doesn't make any sense.
[From an interview with David Barsamian]
CHOMSKY: To tell you the honest truth, when I see a huge mob, which is pretty common these days, I have a mixture of feelings. Partly, I'm sort of depressed about it, for a lot of reasons. For one thing, there's just too much personalization. It doesn't make any sense. It's worrisome. [...] The question that comes up over and over again, and I don't really have an answer still -- really, I don't know any other people who have answers to them -- is, "It's terrible, awful, getting worse. What do we do? Tell me the answer." The trouble is, there has not in history ever been any answer other than, "Get to work on it."
I have complained to the Guardian but heard not a peep back from them. Has anyone else?
I also complained that they have distributed the article (for example to their sister paper in South Africa the Mail & Guardian, where it was published under the headline Chomsky: As flaky as the next man). I see today that one of the paper's own commentators, John Matshikiza, has railed against the interview in his piece On being told to use your head".
Nagging Doubt – without wishing to be unkind, I can’t help noticing the irony in the amount of time you’ve devoted to telling me this is a side issue, or in the fact that time I was going to spend writing about media silence on war crimes and the general state of Iraq is instead being spent replying to these points. Since there’s not a great deal I can say beyond repeating myself, I’ll be as brief as possible.
The issue is not the personality or celebrity of Noam Chomsky, so your use of quotes from him on these topics is misconceived, if not irrelevant to what I’ve posted here. The issue is how dissident voices are excluded from mainstream debate, even by the most liberal of news media, and by use of the most underhand methods. That issue is not a side issue, hence the importance of this particular example, “a useful model for studies of defamation exercises”, and therefore worth posting on.
Finally, as an aside, you might consider the possibility that Chomsky has the prominence that he does not, for the most part, because of a lot of “fervent followers” or some largely nebulous “cult of celebrity”, but because of the nature and quality of his work over forty years, which many people who are serious about these issues have found to be of enormous practical use.
Firstly, I was hoping to keep this brief too. But I also thought that a discussion on the issue could be referenced again in the future if needed, so as to save time.
Secondly, I never suggested that Chomsky's prominence was due to anything but the nature and quality of his work. I did suggest that some of his supporters (a minority, for all I know -- and I wasn't including you) seem to miss the point of what he writes, yet seem to fervently support him as a person. (As Chomsky said: "too much personalization". In fact, the issue of personality is precisely the point: Brockes' incompetent interview was prompted by the Prospect poll.) This can be seen by the first too letters published in the Guardian in Chomsky's defence, of which Chomsky wrote: "I have to say that these letters disturb me as much or more than the original deceit".
Thirdly, I have no problem with people writing articles, blog entries, letters to the Guardian, and whatnot on the subject. And I had no problem with your blog entry, and my comments have little if anything to do with what you wrote in the main entry. My only concern was one of proportion and the issue being a minor diversion. As Chomsky said "It is a nuisance, and a bit of a bore, to dwell on the topic." And so I will try not to...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Sorry, just one last point to make on the issue of "being a diversion". Some at the Media Lens message board wrote letters to George Monbiot urging him to support Chomsky in his Guardian column. I didn't see anyone urging him to write about Fallujah. And this weeks article was on... Fallujah
Hi Diarist,
I have now written a detailed article in my blog titled "Some Thoughts on Dissent" on our discussion which you may like to read if you have the time. If you feel that I have misrepresented you please let me know in the comments section or here, but I think I have been fair.
thanks, Nagging Doubt. Yep, I'll have a read now and respond if necessary.
btw. anonymous of 11:43am - sorry not to reply sooner. I don't think anyone's had a response from the Guardian but it seems the matter is being pursued. See my update of today. I'd be very disappointed if this was whitewashed or if a non-apology apology was issued. I'd still like to think that this isn't the sort of thing the Guardian go in for. We'll see.
Hi Diarist,
If you have not seen it yet, the Guardian has published an apology to Chomsky which you may like to add to your list of updates.
It is interesting to note that though the Guardian has now removed Brockes' interview from their website (as stated in the apology), it is still up (as I write this) on the South African Mail & Guardian website.
yep - seen it and updated the post again. I'm sure the Mail & Guardian will catch up with reality in time.
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