Amnesty denies making exclusive media deals for Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is giving this year's Amnesty International annual lecture on 'The War on Terror'. Amnesty has imposed restrictions on media access to him during his stay

Amnesty International has come under fire for its handling of the forthcoming visit to Dublin of renowned US academic, author and activist, Noam Chomsky. The human rights organisation has been accused of imposing tight restrictions on media access to Chomsky, who will be spending several days in Dublin.

Amnesty is flying Chomsky to Ireland to deliver the 2006 Amnesty Lecture at the RDS on Wednesday 18 January on the topic, "The War on Terror".

Dublin community radio station NEARfm, which has had contacts with Chomsky over the years, contacted him several months ago seeking an interview and offering to broadcast his lecture live. He passed the request on to Amnesty International, who told NEARfm that Dublin commercial station Newstalk 106 would be the only station to get an interview.

NEARfm is annoyed at what it insists is an "exclusivity deal" between Amnesty and Newstalk 106. Amnesty denies that Newstalk has an exclusivity deal, but confirmed to Village that the station's interview – on Eamon Dunphy's early morning show – would be the only radio interview Chomsky would be giving during his visit. All other requests were being turned down, due to time constraints.

Meanwhile, in a development that would provide an interesting case study for students of Chomsky's writings about mainstream media, RTÉ television's Prime Time has been offered a deal whereby interviews by other media outlets have been embargoed until after Prime Time broadcasts its interview with him on Thursday evening, 19 January.

Village had been granted one of the four print interviews with Chomsky, but because of the Prime Time-related embargo, would have had to delay publication of the interview for a week and so has decided to decline.

No media passes are being given out for the lecture at the RDS and no recording or filming is being permitted, because Amnesty is filming the event itself, but said it did not yet know what it would do with the film subsequently.

Chomsky will be signing books at Tower Records on Wicklow St on Wednesday 18 January, but access will be restricted to members of Amnesty. Annual membership costs €40.

Jack Byrne, chairperson of NEARfm, said the station was "very disappointed" with the way Amnesty was handling the visit. "We're concerned that democratic community media are being excluded from Professor Chomsky. We should be in cohorts with Amnesty and Chomsky. Amnesty doesn't seem to understand that."

"Professor Chomsky doesn't seem sensitive about this. He seems happy to be wheeled along to whatever interviews Amnesty decide for him. He should be aware of what's going on. We've used Chomsky's writings in our media training courses for years, but now we're very disappointed at these developments."

When contacted by Village, Chomsky said he knew "nothing about any of this. Absolutely nothing. That's the norm. I'm constantly giving talks all over."

He said he couldn't "possibly pay attention to the arrangements that are being made. I don't have a 'trip manager', or anything of the sort, and am far too immersed in day to day obligations even to check. So I just leave it in the hands of the organisers, assuming good faith. [I] don't see any realistic alternative, except to cut down significantly on responding to invitations, requests, etc, and I don't want to do that."

Amnesty says Chomsky is not being paid a fee for his visit, but the costs of the trip are being covered by Amnesty, with Newstalk 106 putting up some of the money.

Chomsky was last year voted the world's greatest intellectual in a British magazine poll. He has made several previous speaking trips to Ireland, but never with the level of media and public interest that has surrounded this visit. The Irish Independent recently ran a front page lead story reporting that Chomsky had accused Bertie Ahern of being George Bush's "puppet" and "shoeshine boy".

?More www.chomsky.info, www.amnesty.ie