A Dangerous Man

Caught an interview with Noam Chomsky on the World Service on my way into work today. I think it was one of the Hardtalk series. The interviewer did a good job of challenging Chomsky whilst giving him reasonable room to develop his ideas (the political, not linguistic ones), but it was one of those times when the thirty minute format just wasn't enough. I could have listened to several hours of discussion of this depth and quality.

Which leads to an interesting question: given the epic amounts of time available to cable news, why is it we don't get hours of quality discussion? All they'd have to do is get someone like Chomsky on board with a decent interviewer, let the cameras roll, and they could fill their schedules for almost next to nothing. I suppose they'd answer that nobody would watch, but somehow I doubt that that would really be the case. Chomsky sells well enough and could be wrapped in enough controversy to generate a reasonable audience. Perhaps the real problem is that too many people would watch?

Just as a matter of interest, I've never heard Chomsky when interviewed being other than dryly and painstakingly logical. I suppose that's why he doesn't sound at all like the usual talking heads.