When should experts say no to interview requests? How do they balance the need to present audiences with valuable information with avoiding being taken out of context or used to further a bias promoted by a media outlet?
Two experts Rosa Freedman, Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development at University of Reading, UK, and Eric Heinze, MDI Trustee and Professor of Law and Humanities at the School of Law Queen Mary, University of London, explain their experiences and provide their advice.
By Rosa Freedman
If we accept that all media outlets, like all institutions, have their own objectives and aims, and that all media outlets, like all institutions, are steered by individuals and groups with their own personalities and preferences, then it should not be controversial that each media platform has its own agendas and biases.
The question that I grapple with is whether and when to accept interview requests from television or radio outlets that are propagandists for autocratic or illiberal regimes.
On the one hand, I do not want to lend them credibility by appearing on their shows, and on the other hand if independent experts do not grant them interviews then their audiences – particularly those people who do not engage with other news media – are denied access to impartial and specialist knowledge.
Over the years I have appeared on a broad range of state-owned media, including ABC (Australia), Al-Jazeera (Qatar), BBC (UK), CTGN (China), France24 (France), TRT (Turkey), amongst others; as well as a broad range of commercially owned stations.
There are times when I have said no to specific interviews from those state broadcasters, such as on debates where the premise was outrageously flawed or biased. And there are some media outlets, such as Press TV and Sputnik Radio, that I have refused to engage with altogether.
Looking at how and why I have decided which shows to appear on is an interesting exercise.
Early in my career I was flattered to receive interview requests and would largely say yes without looking too closely at the broadcaster. My expertise on the United Nations, international human rights law, and conflict, lends itself to interviews on topical and timely issues around the world. As my career progressed, so did my reputation as an engaging interviewee who does not use jargon or legalese, who says yes to most interviews (even when recording at 3am UK time), and who connects with audiences across the world. Over recent years, however, I have become somewhat more discerning about the broadcasters and also about my own personal biases and aims.
One summer my friends were surprised to see that I had become France24’s go-to-expert on the royal family, commenting on the Queen’s jubilee (I ended one interview saying that I did not “have time to wave bunting”) and then her death. To this day I am not sure why that station went from interviewing me about Haiti or human rights matters to wanting me to discuss the Windsors. I have turned down similar types of invitations subsequently, making sure that I only focus on areas where I am offering expertise not opinion.
Recently I posted on LinkedIn criticising Al Jazeera’s coverage of the 7th October atrocities perpetrated against Israel by the terrorist group Hamas, whose political leaders live in Qatar. I did not expect to be invited back onto their shows anytime soon, despite having been a firm favourite discussing the United Nations, Haiti or human rights on many news shows and episodes of Inside Story. However, and to their credit, they brought me back on as an expert interviewee (albeit not on that particular topic) a couple of months later. Something similar happened with TRT when I challenged their framing of a ‘debate’ about Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I am not willing to participate in lending credibility to openly biased and flawed reporting or coverage.
I stopped engaging with X, formerly known as Twitter, before it was taken over by Elon Musk. While a useful tool for networking and for promoting offline engagement, it has increasingly become a space where conflict and ad hominem attacks are encouraged, and serious debate and discussion stifled, not least because many so-called ‘keyboard warriors’ hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Instead, I prefer to use platforms like LinkedIn to write longer posts and to engage with other commentators in a more thoughtful and meaningful way.
The biggest lesson I have learned is to talk to the University Press Office. They are trained in these areas, offer information about the broadcasters (or podcasters, documentary makers, etc) who have contacted me, and are on hand to talk through the pros and cons of appearing on the channels. Ultimately it is flattering to be invited onto these shows, so having objective and impartial advice from my institution has been crucial for me when making decisions.
Rosa Freedman is the inaugural Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development at the University of Reading. She is a non-practising barrister and an academic member of 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square. Freedman’s work focuses on international law, the United Nations and human rights. She has served as a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Civil Society Advisory Board, of the UK FCDO Steering Committee, and a Specialist Adviser to the UK government’s International Development Committee.
By Eric Heinze
I was first contacted by the Russian state’s official Sputnik Radio station, which operates globally in several languages, in 2017. This was the topic: the copyright on Hitler’s 1925 Mein Kampf was about to expire, meaning that anyone would be free to publish the book. Debate was raging in Germany about whether restrictions needed be placed on further publication, from ethical and legal as well as pragmatic standpoints.
The interviewer, like many from Russian State media at the time, was a professionally trained Westerner who, at least on first impression, conducted the conversation much like anyone from the BBC, CNN, or mainstream German media would have done. I reminded his listeners that Hitler’s original German version, not to mention any number of translations, had already long been available online, indeed mostly on sites run by neo-Nazi groups.
I argued that attempts to curb republication would prove unfeasible in principle and would only encourage curious readers to flock to such extremist sites, which in turn would raise such sites’ online profiles. Just to be clear, this all happened before laws were adopted by various nations, mostly after 2020, that now penalise internet service providers for failing to remove racist and other incendiary materials. Still, even under these new laws it remains doubtful whether courts will uphold censorship of historically vital documents like Mein Kampf.
More importantly, by the time Sputnik contacted me for this interview Kiev’s Maidan Square protests, along with Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea, were three years old. The Kremlin was busy swinging Russian nationalism into high gear. I knew well that a message along the lines of “UK-based human rights expert favours republication of Hitler!” would fuel Moscow’s revived narratives about a Western world steeped in the Nazi past.
Still, I naively thought that my direct and honest opinion would hold its own against Putin’s propaganda machine. I continued to grant interviews to Sputnik, as well as official Chinese, Turkish, and other such outlets. Each time it became clearer that the “Westerner exposes Western horrors!” song was the only one in their hymnal.
I vocally pushed back when Sputnik interviewed me about the Charlie Guard case. This involved an infant victim of total and irreversible brain damage, whom British medical authorities declined to assign for what they believed to be hopeless additional treatment, despite the parents’ strident and very public campaigns.
The interviewer obviously wanted me to deliver a one-sided picture of an inhumane UK hospital. This would have been a lie. I refused to recite that message, instead explaining the ambiguities raised by the case. This unexpected response on my part left the interviewer crestfallen, having to transmit nuance and complexity instead of the hoped-for propaganda.
But then if all these Western journalists were so well trained, why were they even working for outlets like Sputnik or similar counterparts in other nations, like Turkey or Qatar, lacking a free press? Some of them were at the start of their careers. For them, the lure of regular and comparatively well-paid employment triumphed over the precarity of jobbing for peanuts in unstable jobs for obscure Western outlets, if they could even find that. Nor were senior recruits unknown, given that even a long career in journalism does not always guarantee steady work. In fact, some staff members, particularly those with more radical left-wing or right-wing outlooks, felt resolutely committed to the “Russian point of view,” trusting that “after all, Western media are just as biased”.
Let’s not forget that this latter accusation has circulated for decades and is alive and kicking today. Recall the accusations of Western media bias during conflicts in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, or Iraq, to name only a few examples. Indeed, no one rooted in a political home is ever satisfied with reporting at some other end of the spectrum. Even in a healthy media landscape accusations of bias fly every day. This leads many people to stumble into cynical relativism. They start with the justified premise that no reporting is ever wholly unbiased, but then are handily drawn to the ludicrous conclusion that, say, The Guardian or The New York Times are no less biased than state media in Putin’s Russia or Xi’s China.
Ludicrous? If so, then when deciding whether to grant interviews, how are we to distinguish between the biased and the unbiased, the reliable and the unreliable, the factual and the fallacious? These questions are as old as journalism itself, yet they remain far too bound to specific contexts to allow for definitive replies, so I will not attempt a conclusive list of ‘Do’ and ‘Don’t’ media outlets. Nevertheless, before choosing to speak to the media I would offer a few tips.
First, always investigate the agency’s ideological profile, which in some cases may not at first be apparent. Don’t be fooled by homepages that appear polished, professional, and balanced.
Second, consider why the agency is interested in a topic and how it might use even what you believe to be a fair and balanced interview in deceptive ways. Look for ways to gear your responses to challenge inbuilt biases, knowing that skilful interviewers will often try to steer you away from that path. Don’t assume that the interviewer alone sets the agenda.
Third, serious interviewers will ordinarily agree on the general questions in advance, often via e-mail. At that stage, and then again in the live interview, they will usually try to dress their questions in neutral and balanced language. Stay polite, but your role is not to befriend or even to impress the interviewers. Your duty is not to them but to your audience. Don’t sound so conciliatory or discrete that you end up hedging about the challenge you wish to bring.
And if, in thanks for your efforts, the editors decide not to publish the interview? Well then, it was probably never worth doing it in the first place.
Of course, not all media fit tidily on a spectrum marked out by Russian and Chinese media at one extreme and The Guardian at the other. Ever since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, then renamed it ‘X’, we have witnessed his willingness to promote and even elevate disinformation and hate speech. Many of us now long for the day when a better site will overthrow X, though we know that attempts to launch such sites have been precarious, not only because of X’s success but because its content provokes engagement across the political spectrum.
Admittedly, if writers were to withdraw en masse, then X, like Donald Trump’s Truth Social, would become peripheral. Still, X cannot— at least, not yet—be likened to Russian or Chinese media insofar as many points of view can be aired, including most of those that criticise and lampoon both Musk and his site. For the foreseeable future, it is therefore better for serious contributors to fight their corner on X, while planning about how that dreamed-of replacement for X can soon be created.
Eric Heinze is MDI Trustee, Professor of Law and Humanities at the School of Law Queen Mary, University of London. He has made numerous contributions in the areas of legal philosophy, justice theory, jurisprudence, and human rights. He has also contributed to the law and literature movement, and is Executive Director at Centre for Law, Democracy, and Society. In his most recent published book, The Most Human Right, Professor Heinze explains why global human rights systems have failed.
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Media Diversity Institute. Any question or comment should be addressed to [email protected]
