Interview: Example from The Hindu

Interviews

Journalist-writer Nick Davies explains the art of turning an investigative story into a book(Pub. The Hindu)

Over the past four decades, British journalist and writer Nick Davies has earned a reputation for challenging the authority of prevailing narratives and setting new standards in investigative journalism. From fighting for a black man wrongly convicted for rape-murder in the U.S., to playing a key role in WikiLeaks, to taking on Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in the U.K. with the story about phone hacking by journalists at News of the World, Davies has one of the most celebrated careers in contemporary journalism. He is also the author of bestselling books, including Flat Earth News and Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch, that help explain the challenges for the media today. Excerpts from an interview to Josy Joseph:

How do you write a book about the way you scooped a major investigative story? You must have done at least a hundred stories into the telephone hacking by the Murdoch newspapers in the U.K.? How did you then write a book?

It actually becomes difficult. When you are trying to do that, you end up with two different narratives. One is the story of how I got the story. My researcher and I interviewed about 30 people who worked for News of the World. If you just stick with the narrative of the story about how we got the story, those 30 interviews are split up over the whole book. That is not enough. So you then pull them together with what is going on in News of the World, the Scotland Yard, what is going on in the government, what is going on in Murdoch’s company, etc. I wrote a book about that [Hack Attack]. It has got a funny structure, because one chapter is us trying to uncover the story, the other chapter goes back in time into what was happening.

You know George Clooney is trying to direct a movie based on the book. And he has got a writer working on it, and I know the writer will immediately run into the same problem. Is this the story about Nick getting the story, or is it about the story — it is a conflict.

Is it the first time that you came across such a dilemma?

Actually people are more interested in what you found out than in how you found that out. But in the case of the hacking, it is bit like a Hobbit, the little guy going after the big dragon. The book publishers also want that little story, of the Hobbit going after the big guy. You have to write that as well, what is going on behind the scene.

Is that something you struggled with every time you wrote a book? How much of you should be in a book?

I think writing a book is difficult. I find it very hard work, it takes many months.

How much does it actually take you to write a book once you have all the material in place?

Two years. I don’t necessarily have all the material in place when I start writing. But to do the research and writing, for all of the books I must have taken about two years. I may have done some other work alongside. I find it very hard work.

Do you have a certain time when you write most? Many writers speak of early mornings as their favourite time. How do you plan your day, especially since you live in a farm away from London?

I work best in the mornings, when my mind is sharpest. I may also work during the afternoon, but it is never as productive. Then I try not to work in the evenings, because there is a danger that you just get tired and maybe even bored, so then the quality of the work will suffer. Writing a book can be hard work, involving a lot of intense thinking. It’s important to stay mentally sharp, so you have to sleep well, exercise well, eat well — and not work all the time.

When you start writing your book do you retrace your entire work, as in do you go back to interviewing the same people who had spoken to you for the original stories? Or do you do additional reporting to better stitch together the Hobbit part of the investigation, your story?

If I am writing a book on a subject which I have already written about in the paper, then I would gather together all of the material I have found while working for the newspaper and then decide what extra material I would need to produce the book. In some case, that might involve going back to people I had already spoken to. And then usually, as you make progress, you find there are even more things which you need, so the research keeps expanding until you reach a point where you call a halt.

Which amongst your own books is your favourite?

The very first book which I wrote, called White Lies, which is about a little town in Texas where a black man is sentenced to death for raping and murdering a white girl. He is innocent, and the crime was in fact committed by two white men. There are amazing characters in it — it has got a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is a powerful story.

And some of your favourite books?

There is something I read when I was starting out, which was a collection of articles that was published under the heading The New Journalism, edited by Tom Wolfe, who had been a journalist and became a novelist. There are some really, really interesting pieces in there. It is about a particular way of writing, using the techniques that a novelist uses to write a true story. So you are using dialogue, and you are establishing characters, sometimes you are writing facts through their eyes like a novelist does. Some of the pieces in The New Journalism inspired me in trying to get close to subjects and write powerfully.

Keywords: Journalist-writer Nick Davies, role in WikiLeaks, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire

Noam Chomsky on Corporate Media and Activism

Noam Chomsky Interviewed by Zain Raza

Truthout, February 19, 2016

In this interview, which was recorded in an event hosted by acTVism Munich called “Germany’s role in the European Union and International Affairs: Post War History, Present and Possible futures,” Prof. Noam Chomsky talks about the corporate media, their institutional role and which interests they serve in society. Prof. Chomsky also touches on how activists should react when they face harsh condemnation from the establishment media.

Noam Chomsky: “The Mainstream Media are an ideological instrument. They have owners. They have commitments. They have advertising support and so on. They are very valuable. I mean I read them all the time – I am glad they are there. But we shouldn’t have any illusions, they are not coming from Mars. They are based on existing institutions of power and domination within our society and that affects the way what they chose to discuss at all, some things they don’t discuss and the ways in which they do it. It would be almost a miracle if that weren’t true.”

Due to limited financial resources, personnel and technical capacities, we plan to release the entire interview in a “mini-video” format. As a non-profit and volunteer based organization, this format provides us with sufficient time to coordinate our schedules outside of our occupational commitments and translate the content into multiple languages, subtitle and voice-synchronize it for people with hearing and visual impairment.

Zain Raza: There is some resistance to US military presence here such as peaceful demonstrations that take place on Monday in Munich, every Monday, and yearly demonstrations against the front of the Drone base – however these grassroots actions are immediately associated to the nationalism of the 30’s that we are “uniting as a nation and standing up” but the Mainstream-press immediately.

So you’ve described this sort of action by the Mainstream Media as the fifth filter, could you briefly touch upon that again and why the Mainstream Media uses this sort of action to quell grassroots movements?

Noam Chomsky: The Mainstream Media are an ideological instrument. They have owners. They have commitments. They have advertising support and so on. They are very valuable. I mean I read them all the time – I am glad they are there. But we shouldn’t have any illusions, they are not coming from Mars. They are based on existing institutions of power and domination within our society and that affects the way what they chose to discuss at all, some things they don’t discuss and the ways in which they do it. It would be almost a miracle if that weren’t true. And when they condemn actions like these that should be taken as praise. Say, we are doing the right thing. If these institutions condemn us that’s pretty good reason to think we’re doing the right. It happens to counter to their particular interests but they don’t represent the public interest. They represent certain special interests of power and domination and privilege. So if they don’t like what we are doing, fine, let’s continue, and it is the right thing to do, at least if you care about the survival of the species – and that’s what is at stake. We should recognize that in the case of nuclear weapons, as well as environmental catastrophe, we are really talking about survival of the species. In case of nuclear weapons, literal survival. And again I repeat – it’s come very close in the past and there is no reason to think that’s not going to repeat.

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Global Struggles for Dominance: Noam Chomsky on ISIS, NATO and Russia

Noam Chomsky interviewed by C.J. Polychroniou

Truthout, August 17, 2016

C.J. Polychroniou: The rise of ISIS (also known as Daesh or ISIL) is a direct consequence of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and represents today, by far, the most brutal and dangerous terrorist organization we have seen in recent memory. It also appears that its tentacles have reached beyond the “black holes” created by the United States in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan and have now taken hold inside Europe, a fact acknowledged recently by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In fact, it has been estimated that attacks organized or inspired by ISIS have taken place every 48 hours in cities outside the above-mentioned countries since early June 2016. Why have countries like Germany and France become the targets of ISIS?

Noam Chomsky: I think we have to be cautious in interpreting ISIS claims of responsibility for terrorist attacks. Take the worst of the recent ones, in Nice. It was discussed by Akbar Ahmed, one of the most careful and discerning analysts of radical Islam. He concludes from the available evidence that the perpetrator, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was probably “not a devout Muslim. He had a criminal record, drank alcohol, ate pork, did drugs, did not fast, pray or regularly attend a mosque and was not religious in any way. He was cruel to his wife, who left him. This is not what many Muslims would typically consider reflective of their faith, particularly those who consider themselves religiously devout.” ISIS did (belatedly) “take credit” for the attack, as they routinely do, whatever the facts, but Ahmed regards the claim as highly dubious in this case. On this and similar attacks, he concludes that “the reality is that while ISIS may influence these Muslims in a general way, their animus is coming from their position as unwanted immigrants in Europe, especially in France, where they are still not treated French, even if they are born there. The community as a whole has a disproportionate population of unemployed youth with poor education and housing and is constantly the butt of cultural humiliation. It is not an integrated community, barring some honorable exceptions. From it come the young men like Lahouaiej Bouhlel. The pattern of [the] petty criminal may be observed in the other recent terrorist attacks in Europe, including those in Paris and Brussels.”

Ahmed’s analysis corresponds closely to that of others who have done extensive investigation of recruits to ISIS, notably Scott Atran and his research team. And it should, I think, be taken seriously, along with his prescriptions, which also are close to those of other knowledgeable analysts: to “provide the Muslim community educational and employment opportunities, youth programs, and promote acceptance, diversity and understanding. There is much that governments can do to provide language, cultural and religious training for the community, which will help resolve, for example, the problem of foreign imams having difficulty transferring their roles of leadership into local society.”

Merely to take one illustration of the problem to be faced, Atran points out that “only 7 to 8 percent of France’s population is Muslim, whereas 60 to 70 percent of France’s prison population is Muslim.” It’s also worth taking note of a recent National Research Council report, which found that “with respect to political context, terrorism and its supporting audiences appear to be fostered by policies of extreme political repression and discouraged by policies of incorporating both dissident and moderate groups responsibly into civil society and the political process.”

It’s easy to say, “Let’s strike back with violence” — police repression, carpet-bomb them to oblivion (Ted Cruz), etc. — very much what al-Qaeda and ISIS have hoped for, and very likely to intensify the problems, as, indeed, has been happening until now.

What is ISIS’s aim, when targeting innocent civilians, such as the attack on the seaside town of Nice in France in which 84 people were killed?

As I mentioned, we should, I think, be cautious about the claims and charges of ISIS initiative, or even involvement. But when they are involved in such atrocities, the strategy is clear enough. Careful and expert analysts of ISIS and violent insurgencies (Scott Atran, William Polk and others) generally tend to take ISIS at its word. Sometimes they cite the “playbook” in which the core strategy used by ISIS is laid out, written a decade ago by the Mesopotamian wing of the al-Qaeda affiliate that morphed into ISIS. Here are the first two axioms (quoting an article by Atran):

[Axiom 1:] Hit soft targets: ‘Diversify and widen the vexation strikes against the Crusader-Zionist enemy in every place in the Islamic world, and even outside of it if possible, so as to disperse the efforts of the alliance of the enemy and thus drain it to the greatest extent possible.’
[Axiom 2:] Strike when potential victims have their guard down to maximise fear in general populations and drain their economies: ‘If a tourist resort that the Crusaders patronise… is hit, all of the tourist resorts in all of the states of the world will have to be secured by the work of additional forces, which are double the ordinary amount, and a huge increase in spending.’
And the strategy has been quite successful, both in spreading terrorism and imposing great costs on the “Crusaders” with slight expenditure.

It has been reported that tourists in France will be protected by armed forces and soldiers at holiday sites, including beaches. How much of this development is linked to the refugee crisis in Europe, where millions have been arriving in the last couple of years from war-torn regions around the world?

Hard to judge. The crimes in France have not been traced to recent refugees, as far as I have seen. Rather, it seems to be more like the Lahouaiej Bouhlel case. But there is great fear of refugees, far beyond any evidence relating them to crime. Much the same appears to be true in the US, where Trump-style rhetoric about Mexico sending criminals and rapists doubtless frightens people, even though the limited statistical evidence indicates that “first-generation immigrants are predisposed to lower crime rates than native-born Americans,” as reported by Michelle Ye Hee Lee in The Washington Post.

To what extent would you say that Brexit was being driven by xenophobia and the massive inflow of immigrants into Europe?

There has been plenty of reporting giving that impression, but I haven’t seen any hard data. And it’s worth recalling that the inflow of immigrants is from the EU, not those fleeing from conflict. It’s also worth recalling that Britain has had a non-trivial role in generating refugees. The invasion of Iraq, to give one example. Many others, if we consider greater historical depth. The burden of dealing with the consequences of US-UK crimes falls mainly on countries that had no responsibility for them, like Lebanon, where about 40 percent of the population are estimated to be refugees.

Are the US and the major western powers really involved in a war against ISIS? This would seem doubtful to an outside observer, given the growing influence of ISIS and the continuing ability of the organization to recruit soldiers for its cause from inside Europe.

Speculations to that effect are rampant in the Middle East, but I don’t think they have any credibility. The US is powerful, but not all-powerful. There is a tendency to attribute everything that happens in the world to the CIA or some diabolical Western plan. There is plenty to condemn, sharply. And the US is indeed powerful. But it’s nothing like what is often believed.

There seems to be a geopolitical shift underway in Turkey’s regional political role, which may have been the ultimate cause behind the failed coup of July 2016. Do you detect such a shift under way?

There certainly has been a shift in regional policy from former [Turkish Prime Minister] Davutoğlu’s “Zero Problems Policy,” but that’s because problems abound. The goal of becoming a regional power, sometimes described as neo-Ottoman, seems to be continuing, if not accelerating. Relations with the West are becoming more tense as Erdogan’s government continues its strong drift towards authoritarian rule, with quite extreme repressive measures. That naturally impels Turkey to seek alliances elsewhere, particularly [with] Russia. Erdogan’s first post-coup visit was to Moscow, in order to restore “the Moscow-Ankara friendship axis” (in his words) to what it was before Turkey shot down a Russian jet in November 2015 when it allegedly passed across the Turkish border for a few seconds while on a bombing mission in Syria. Very unfortunately, there is very little Western opposition to Erdogan’s violent and vicious escalation of atrocities against the Kurdish population in the Southeast, which some observers now describe as approaching the horrors of the 1990s. As for the coup, its background remains obscure, for the time being. I don’t know of evidence that shifts in regional policy played a role.

The coup against Erdogan ensured the consolidation of a highly authoritarian regime in Turkey: Erdogan arrested thousands of people and closed down media outlets, schools and universities following the coup. The effects of the coup may, in fact, even strengthen the role of the military in political affairs as it will come under the direct control of the president himself, a move that Erdogan has already initiated. How will this affect Turkey’s relations with the US and European powers, given the alleged concerns of the latter about human rights and democracy inside Turkey and about Erdogan’s pursuit of closer ties with Putin?

The correct word is “alleged.” During the 1990s, the Turkish government was carrying out horrifying atrocities, targeting its Kurdish population — tens of thousands killed, thousands of villages and towns destroyed, hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) driven from their homes, every imaginable form of torture. Eighty percent of the arms were coming from Washington, increasing as atrocities increased. In the single year, 1997, when atrocities were peaking, Clinton sent more arms than the sum total [sent to Turkey] throughout the entire post-war era until the onset of the counterinsurgency campaign. The media virtually ignored all of this. The [New York] Times has a bureau in Ankara, but it reported almost nothing. The facts were, of course, widely known in Turkey — and elsewhere, to those who took the trouble to look. Now that atrocities are peaking again, as I mentioned, the West prefers to look elsewhere.

Nevertheless, relations between Erdogan’s regime and the West are becoming more tense and there is great anger against the West among Erdogan supporters because of Western attitudes toward the coup (mildly critical, but not enough for the regime) and toward the increased authoritarianism and sharp repression (mild criticism, but too much for the regime). In fact, it is widely believed that the US initiated the coup.

The US is also condemned for asking for evidence before extraditing Gulen, who Erdogan blames for the coup. Not a little irony here. One may recall that the US bombed Afghanistan because the Taliban refused to turn Osama bin Laden over without evidence. Or take the case of [Emmanuel “Toto”] Constant, the leader of the terrorist force FRAPH [Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti] that ran wild in Haiti under the military dictatorship of the early ’90s. When the junta was overthrown by a Marine invasion, he escaped to New York, where he was living comfortably. Haiti wanted him extradited and had more than enough evidence. But Clinton refused, very likely because he would have exposed Clinton’s ties to the murderous military junta.

The recent migration deal between Turkey and the EU seems to be falling apart, with Erdogan having gone so far as to say publicly that “European leaders are not being honest.” What could be the consequences for Turkey-EU relations, and for the refugees themselves, if the deal were to fall apart?

Basically, Europe bribed Turkey to keep the miserable refugees — many fleeing from crimes for which the West bears no slight responsibility — from reaching Europe. It is similar to Obama’s efforts to enlist Mexican support in keeping Central American refugees — often very definitely victims of US policies, including those of the Obama administration — from reaching the US border. Morally grotesque, but better than letting them drown in the Mediterranean. The deterioration of relations will probably make their travail even worse.

NATO, still a US-dominated military alliance, has increased its presence in Eastern Europe lately, as it is bent on stopping Russia’s revival by creating divisions between Europe and Russia. Is the US looking for a military conflict with Russia, or are such moves driven by the need to keep the military-industrial complex intact in a post-Cold War world?

NATO is surely a US-dominated military alliance. As the USSR collapsed, Russia’s Mikhail Gorbachev proposed a continent-wide security system, which the US rejected, insisting on preserving NATO — and expanding it. Gorbachev agreed to allow a unified Germany to join NATO, a remarkable concession in the light of history. There was, however, a quid pro quo: that NATO not expand “one inch to the East,” meaning to East Germany. That was promised by President Bush I and Secretary of State James Baker, but not on paper; it was a verbal commitment, and the US later claimed that [that] means it was not binding.

Careful archival research by Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson, published last spring in the prestigious Harvard-MIT journal International Security, reveals very plausibly that this was intentional deceit, a very significant discovery that substantially resolves, I think, scholarly dispute about the matter. NATO did expand to East Germany; in later years to the Russian border. Those plans were sharply condemned by George Kennan and other highly respected commentators because they were very likely to lead to a new Cold War, as Russia naturally felt threatened. The threat became more severe when NATO invited Ukraine to join in 2008 and 2013. As Western analysts recognize, that extends the threat to the core of Russian strategic concerns, a matter discussed, for example, by John Mearsheimer in the lead article in the major establishment journal, Foreign Affairs.

However, I do not think the goal is to stop Russia’s revival or to keep the military-industrial complex intact. And the US certainly doesn’t want a military conflict, which would destroy both sides (and the world). Rather, I think it’s the normal effort of a great power to extend its global dominance. But it does increase the threat of war, if only by accident, as Kennan and others presciently warned.

In your view, does a nuclear war between the US and Russia remain a very real possibility in today’s world?

A very real possibility, and in fact, an increasing one. That’s not just my judgment. It’s also the judgment of the experts who set the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists; of former Defense Secretary William Perry, one of the most experienced and respected experts on these matters; and of numerous others who are by no means scaremongers. The record of near accidents, which could have been terminal, is shocking, not to speak of very dangerous adventurism. It is almost miraculous that we have survived the nuclear weapons era, and playing with fire is irresponsible in the extreme. In fact, these weapons should be removed from the Earth, as even many of the most conservative analysts recognize — Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and others.

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