Repeated attempts to skewer clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson fell flat in a remarkable interview with Britain’s Channel 4 news, reports the Spectator.
Douglas Murray writes of the interview for the Spectator’s Coffee House blog:
In the magazine this week (out tomorrow) I have written a piece about the Canadian Professor Jordan Peterson. He has been in the UK over the last week to talk about his new book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Among many other things – much more of which I go into in the piece – his visit showed up the UK’s broadcast media in a very bad light.
On Saturday morning, Peterson made an appearance on Radio 4’s Today programme. They gave him a hurried four minutes at the end of the show. They could have quizzed him on almost anything and got a point of view different from almost any other they had ever allowed their listeners to hear. Instead they decided to treat him in an alternately jocular and hostile manner. First: ‘Look at this whacky Canadian from out of town’. Then: ‘warning signs: heretic’. The Today programme wasted the opportunity.
But they scored a veritable home-run compared to the interview Cathy Newman did with him yesterday for Channel 4 News. The full half-hour interview is available online. If I was Channel 4 I would take it down. If I was Cathy Newman I would sue or seek a super-injunction. I don’t think I have ever witnessed an interview that is more catastrophic for the interviewer.