RTE gets Chomsky interview

RTE and Amnesty's cosy deal.

You don't remember me, but we go back. In 1985, you and I and a few hundred friends were arrested in Boston for holding an after-hours "town meeting" in the lobby of a federal office building. (The charges were subsequently dropped – sorry, Minister McDowell, no criminal conviction for me, though of course that small fact wouldn't stem the flow of slime if you felt so inclined.)

We were protesting Reagan's trade embargo against Nicaragua, but we weren't exactly single-issue activists. A few weeks later you were typically helpful in finding a sound-thinking economist to advise a few of us protesting the presence of Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volker at our graduation from that liberal-arts college up the road from your MIT.

I stopped pestering you then because I moved to Ireland, but never stopped reading your work while plotting the subversion of the Irish media from within. (It's not going too well.) I know you've been here before, but I'm being so bold as to write to you because with your mega-celeb status this time, the cast of characters around you has changed, and perhaps needs some introduction.

There is, for starters, Amnesty International's Irish section. Access to your Wednesday signing and lecture gigs was limited to Amnesty members, and interested callers were invited to join at €40 a pop – "it's a scam", said one of my students as he came off the phone. It was unfair but I understood.

You know Amnesty well and you've often cited its work. On the ground here it is, like other NGOs, involved in the intense competition for media attention, forging and maintaining relationships with key journalists and outlets.

That's fine and predictable, but in (understandably) turning over the media programme for your visit to Amnesty you've made yourself an asset in this competition. For reasons best known to Amnesty, it has "given" you to Prime Time, an often-admirable TV current-affairs show on the State broadcaster, RTÉ. Prime Time, in turn, imposed a condition: not only would its be the sole TV interview, but no print interviews arranged here would appear before Thursday evening, 19 January. Thus screwing my chances of meeting and interviewing you for this week's Village. (Not that it's personal!)

Obviously, despite the near-papal excitement surrounding your visit, you have no intention of conferring some sort of blessing on RTÉ. But the stitch-up serves only Amnesty and RTÉ, the latter a woefully inadequate, politically craven organisation: the Government-appointed chairman of its governing authority resigned last week when it was belatedly realised that overseeing the national broadcaster might present the odd conflict-of-interest for a man whose multi-million-euro business is managing sports personalities and events.

Then there's your only radio gig, on a Dublin station, NewsTalk 106, a deal that has effectively squeezed out more Chomsky-friendly community broadcasters. And unlike the Prime Time agreement, it doesn't even bring a large audience as compensation. (The extraordinary obsequiousness of your interviewer, Eamon Dunphy, is nice while it lasts but standard practice, I'm afraid.)

What that Amnesty-organised interview does is reward NewsTalk, which is losing money, for its apparent part-funding of your visit. It seems strange that the station would spill more red ink for the sake of just one chat, unless you realise that it is owned by media mogul and mobile-phone squillionaire Denis O'Brien.

O'Brien is a colourful tax exile whose alleged payments to a communications minister are the subject of ongoing investigation. He is also renowned for his generosity to good causes, including, believe it or not, Amnesty International's Irish section.

You didn't use to have to worry about stuff like this. Maybe you think you still don't. One of your lectures here is, after all, at the Clinton Institute for American Studies: life is full of political ironies and compromises if you wish to be heard.

All the same, your name now carries such enormous weight that perhaps you should consider how, and by whom, it is used.

Fraternally,

Harry Browne