An Irish Journalist interviews Good King George?

<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2766-1817008_1,00.html" target="_blank">Link
to Story</a>

Some insight into the White House process and how
it deals(process)with journalists.

You decide did this young Irish Journalist over step
her bounds or did she do her job and get a unique
perspective.

snippet:

“Are we all ready to go then?” I asked, looking around the room. The next voice I heard was the president’s. “I think we have a spunky one here,” he said, to nobody in particular.

snippet:
The interview sounded like quite a production. We wouldn’t be able to just saunter in there with a camera. It would be filmed by a White House crew, which would then hand over the tapes to me to be copied and returned the same day.

snippet:
Reporters often begin a big interview by asking a soft question — to let the subject warm up before getting into the substance of the topic at hand. This was how I had initially intended to begin with Bush, but as I mentally rehearsed the likely scenario, I felt that too much time could be consumed by his first probable answer, praising Ireland and looking forward to his visit. We could, I had calculated, be into the third minute before even getting to the controversial topics. I decided to ditch the cordial introduction.

snippet:
Then MC announced that she had some news for me. “There may be another interview in the pipeline for you,” she said.

“Me?”

“We’re not supposed to tell you this yet, but we are trying to set up an interview with the first lady.”
She indicated that the White House had already been in contact with RTE to make arrangements for the interview at Dromoland Castle, where the president and Mrs Bush would be staying. As an admirer of Laura Bush’s cool grace and sharp intellect, I had requested interviews with her several times previously without any reply. Now the first lady of the United States was being handed to me on a plate. I could not believe my luck.

“Of course, it’s not certain yet,” MC added. And then her sidekick dropped his second bombshell. “We’ll see how you get on with the president first.”


snippeta journalist that prays thats a good sign Stephanie and I locked eyes and headed for the ladies’ powder room, where we prayed.


snippet:

t was over. I felt like a delinquent child who had been reprimanded by a stern, unwavering father. My face must have been the same colour as my suit. Yet I also knew that we had discussed some important issues — probably more candidly than I had heard from President Bush in some time.

I was removing my microphone when he addressed me.

“Is that how you do it in Ireland — interrupting people all the time?”

I froze. He was not happy with me and was letting me know it.

“Yes,” I stuttered, determined to maintain my own half-smile.

snippet:
At the studio I handed over the tapes. My phone rang. It was MC, and her voice was cold.

“We just want to say how disappointed we are in the way you conducted the interview,” she said.

“How is that?” I asked.

“You talked over the president, not letting him finish his answers.”

“Oh, I was just moving him on,” I said, explaining that I wanted some new insight from him, not two-year-old answers.

“He did give you plenty of new stuff.”

She estimated that I had interrupted the president eight times and added that I had upset him. I was upset too, I told her. The line started to break up; I was in a basement with a bad phone signal. I took her number and agreed to call her back. I dialled the White House number and she was on the line again.

“I’m here with Colby,” she indicated.

“Right.”

“You were given an opportunity to interview the leader of the free world and you blew it,” she began.

I was beginning to feel as if I might be dreaming. I had naively believed the American president was referred to as the “leader of the free world” only in an unofficial tongue-in-cheek sort of way by outsiders, and not among his closest staff.

“You were more vicious than any of the White House press corps or even some of them up on Capitol Hill . . .The president leads the interview,” she said.

“I don’t agree,” I replied, my initial worry now turning to frustration. “It’s the journalist’s job to lead the interview.”

It was suggested that perhaps I could edit the tapes to take out the interruptions, but I made it clear that this would not be possible.

As the conversation progressed, I learnt that I might find it difficult to secure further co-operation from the White House. A man’s voice then came on the line. Colby, I assumed. “And, it goes without saying, you can forget about the interview with Laura Bush.”

Clearly the White House had thought they would be dealing with an Irish “colleen” bowled over by the opportunity to interview the Bushes. If anyone there had done their research on RTE’s interviewing techniques, they might have known better.

MC also indicated that she would be contacting the Irish Embassy in Washington — in other words, an official complaint from Washington to Dublin.

“I don’t know how we are going to repair this relationship, but have a safe trip back to Ireland,” MC concluded. I told her I had not meant to upset her since she had been more than helpful to me. The conversation ended.

By the time I got to the control room, the Prime Time broadcast had just started. It was at the point of the first confrontation with the “leader of the free world” and those gathered around the monitors were glued to it. “Well done,” someone said. “This is great.”

I thought about the interview again as I climbed up the steps to RTE’s live camera position at Dromoland Castle to account for myself on the 6pm news next day. By now the White House had vented its anger to the Irish embassy in Washington. To make matters worse for the administration, the interview had made its way onto American television and CNN was replaying it around the world and by the end of the day it had been aired in Baghdad.

Had I been fair? Should I just have been more deferential to George Bush? I felt that I had simply done my job and shuddered at the thought of the backlash I would surely have faced in Ireland had I not challenged the president on matters that had changed the way America was viewed around the world.

 

So do you think C4K that is why Bush was on the
defensive/offensive with her?

I thought it was interesting she seems to be a person
of prayer which is a plus in her column.

Good to see agreement about journalists being free
to ask unsubmitted questions.

All in all an interesting take on the process and how
both journalists and Bush deal with each other.

I think she broke through the un scripted heavily
talking point fillibustering that Bush seems to
use.

I think we saw a raw interview..but truthful.

I think it explains alot the over submissiveness
of the United States press as Bush will use the
carrot and stick approach to them...with that approach both sides are quilty of not delivering
to the people the unvarnished truth.

Aslanspal
imho

 

The times story did say bush did file a protest with
the Irish embassy....I think there are two sides
to every story and we know in our own country bush
lives a scripted and well orchestrated talking points
mantra...what was it he said once.

So I think the story and the poll, pull from both
ends...so you c4k are you saying the President should
not be challenged by hard questions...that may come
off as assertive but others say may be pushy?
I covered that in the poll.

Is it true you may not like the interviewer but
still the questions actually get past the talking
points and mantras and you actually see and hear
bush unvarnished.

And it is obvious she has paid a price for perhaps
speaking truth to power.

Time will tell if she was righteous or not.

So would you agree that bush was unprofessional
and rude as well or even his staff...two wrongs
do not make a right.

Sincerely
Aslanspal

 

<a href="http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/rte-carol-coleman-bush.mp3" target="_blank">MP3
Interview</a>

For the record the Irish Journalist interviewed Colin
Powell and in fact it was accepted on the State Departments website at one point(since been scrubbed)

So I think on a richter scale it is not as bad as
some would have it.

Interview by Carole Coleman of RTE Ireland

Secretary Colin L. Powell
Washington, DC
January 9, 2004

(10:25 a.m. EST)

MS COLEMAN: Secretary Powell, Ireland, in its role as EU president, is hoping to improve relations between America and Europe. Do you think those relations can be improved in the coming months, and what will America do to improve relations?

SECRETARY POWELL: Oh, I think relations are quite good, notwithstanding the occasional press reporting to the contrary. The President has close relations with all of his European colleagues. We've had some serious differences with our French and German colleagues as a result of the Iraq situation last year, but by and large I think we enjoy good relations with Europe.

We know that there was a major dustup with European publics over the Iraq war. That is now behind us, and I think we all have to come together and work together to help the Iraqi people put in place a democracy. Eighteen of the 26 nations of NATO, or about to be members of NATO, have troops in Iraq. That doesn't suggest there's a big fissure between the United States and Europe; quite the contrary, it shows that many European nations are working with us.

We've been reaching out. We are looking forward during the period of the Irish presidency of the European Union to do even more. There will be a NATO summit at the end of June. We’re looking at scheduling now for a U.S.-EU summit that Ireland, of course, would chair. And so we'll be doing more to reach out and show our European colleagues that America appreciates the partnerships we have with our European colleagues, either through NATO or the EU or in other bilateral arrangements.

MS COLEMAN: There is an expectation, Secretary Powell, that yourself and President Bush will actually travel to Ireland in the summer for a transatlantic summit. Can you tell us if that is on the cards?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, it's certainly in the cards. I don't have schedule detail yet, but I know that he very much would hope that the summit would be held in Ireland during the course, of course, of the Irish presidency. But we are not yet at the point where we have schedule details.

MS COLEMAN: Turning to your foreign policy goals for the coming year, do you think that you will be able to hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi people by the June deadline? It is really just months away now, and the place is still quite unstable.

SECRETARY POWELL: It's going to be a difficult task, but we still believe that handover by the 1st of July is possible.

Reconstruction is taking place. Governments are being formed at local level, and we are now putting in place a national transitional government. We are meeting with Secretary General Annan in New York today to discuss the role of the United Nations to help with this political transition.

A great deal of money is now flowing into the infrastructure as a result of the Madrid donors conference and the very significant amount of money that the United States Congress appropriated to this.

So you will start to see improvement in the lives of the average Iraqi. You can see they are now debating amongst themselves as to what kind of a government they want to have, what kind of nation they want to be, one that's founded on democracy, certainly.

And so a lot is happening. And these are challenging times. The security situation is still a challenge to us. But I am confident in our military and in the growing Iraq police and military forces to deal with these remnant elements over time.

MS COLEMAN: Mr. Powell, the weapons of mass destruction issue refuses to go away. You will not admit that you got it wrong, but will you agree that the UN weapons inspectors really had it right?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, I will not admit we got it wrong because we didn't get it wrong. We had a regime that for 12 years had stiffed the international community. So many UN resolutions they ignored. They didn't account for what UN inspectors said they had or could have.

MS COLEMAN: But, Mr. Powell, where are the weapons?

SECRETARY POWELL: They were given every opportunity to do that, and they didn't. President Clinton, in 1998, based on the same basis of intelligence that we had in 2002 and 2003, he struck Iraq for the same reason. Intelligence communities in so many of the major nations that have the capability to look at these things also agreed with it.

Saddam Hussein never lost the intention to have weapons of mass destruction. He had them, he used them against Iranians, he used them against his own people. He never gave up that intention. He never gave up the capability to have such weapons.

Now, what we haven't been able to determine, haven't found, are stockpiles of these weapons. But there is no doubt in our mind, based on what we have found, the intention never went away, the capability never went away, the programs never went away. What we are not yet sure of, because the work of the Iraqi Survey Group continues, is whether or not there are stocks of these weapons around. We haven't found them.

But we are absolutely confident in the decision we made that the world should not take a risk with this despotic regime, with a despotic leader who never lost the intention or the capability, and that had been affirmed over a period of 12 years. If he wanted not to be attacked, all he had to do was, after Resolution 1441 was passed last year, was to come forward with a full, honest declaration, answering all the questions that had been put to him. He didn't, and he paid the consequences.

MS COLEMAN: And, obviously, he has not told you where the weapons are. Thank you very much, Mr. Powell, for joining us on Six One News.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you.

Now this interview made it to the state department
website? and have not heard a peep from Colin Powell whether he was offended or not. So it seems
to me that Colin Powell and George W. Bush are perhaps two different people and staff on how they
handle interviews.

One is prickly and wants his mantra and talking points to go out...and Colin Powell is able to
think on his feet.

Irish Journalist and Colin Powell