Novara Media

Reflecting on AB's interviews and controversy around them, what strikes me is:

I have mixed feelings about AB himself as interviewer. He's intelligent, well read, and charismatic. But he is not a forensic interrogator.

If you're going to interview someone with controversial views, then you probably need to be ready to read their work out line by line, make them explain it, and stick with the text, repeating yourself if necessary (think Jeremy Paxman even!), and make clear if you are *not* satisfied with the outcome before moving on.

I don't expect AB to do this but rather a variety of a) be polite, bantering ingratiatingly; b) say 'and up to this point, I totally agree with you', overemphasising agreement; c) interrupt rather than let the guest finish their own statement; d) be drolly anecdotal about himself ('so my dad's a cab driver, and he says...'). Some of this might be fine in particular cases, but in a controversial scenario it will obscure the examination that needs to take place.

Admittedly AB interviews many different people, mainly from the Left; maybe he should be judged on his full record. Most of us have never watched half his interviews.

I didn't see all of his very long encounter with Peter Hitchens but PH was able to correct AB on facts a number of times.

With Roger Hallam, as I've said, AB's approach was troublingly bad, and he appeared out of his depth.

re AB's jovial interest in interviewing Campbell:

I think it's possible to interview someone without rehab-ing their reputation - so it really depends on the interview.

— Dalia Gebrial (@daliagebrial) April 18, 2023

Has an interviewer on a visual medium ever read a passage from a work out "line by line, explain it, stick with the text". Paxman certainly didn't. Reading the words out loud of someone's book could be an excellent approach though! I feel a lot of these 'thoughts' tend to collapse the moment they are merely read.

Paxman and Bastani certainly sound like one another (not that I am ever watching a full Bastani interview but I saw the clip with Hallam). Lots of interruption, aggressive repetition if the question might not be answered. When I started watching Newsnight I felt entertained, but looking back I don't know what was the point of it. How many insights did I gain on the topic on any given day? I do remember the shouting.

Mostly a waste of time.

I wish AB would just shame the devil and admit he has decided having ethics and standards are an inconvenience for his career ambitions. And if that means platforming horrible morons who are funded by shady right-wing thinktanks - then he's happy to be the UI benefitting from the extra clicks and views.

It's not a careerist move! You see, we are all different.

Thanks Jacob. I’ve got similar mindset - but of course we are all different!

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) April 19, 2023

Goodwin has literally trolled people into reading this shit

Bastani is a fucking rube

Matt Goodwin@GoodwinMJ21h
Maybe you could convince New Statesman to host? We asked. They declined. Then "ideas editor" (Jacobson) called for the cancellation of thinkers he disagrees with.

even the NS are reluctant to boost Goodwin

it's good that all the people who hate antisemitism have been calling him on this thinly-veiled antisemitism tho

Quite a day on the internet for the boy.

https://t.co/Hy0nMm6NUp pic.twitter.com/vjvqC4th39

— hippo king archibald (@SamuraiApology) April 19, 2023

this feels like the absolute moment of fucking himself forever

we see you, you sad twat

and now i've got "Everybody Wants to Be a Melt" stuck in my head, to the tune of that Aristocats song

Yeah, as I've said before on this thread, I don't expect integrity from left journalists, but I do expect enough intelligence not to become this useful an idiot.

I'd like a bit of integrity.

Anyway, saw a tweet that speculated that their subs base has struggled due to inflation/gas bills and hence this turn but idk I think it's just the way it's gone since 2019. Integrity (that word again) is not in the vocabulary anymore.

I don't think integrity is something journalism is structurally built for.

From that point of view very little functions...I agree to an extent though on a personal/small group level I reckon it's possible to exercise a bit of control about certain behaviours. I think with a left leaning platform it's not an impossible ask.

This is designed to troll me

This letter from David in Bristol didn't put landlords in a good light.

But @AaronBastani had a pretty incredible story about a landlord he and his mum had when he was a child. (3/5) pic.twitter.com/jN251yB7t1

— Michael Walker (@michaeljswalker) April 19, 2023

Imagine spending 1h and 40 mins of your time on this

love to hear uplifting stories about good landlords with hearts of gold, or it might not be that at all. But I don't feel a strong compulsion to find out either.

the mythical good landlord that gifts you a nice bottle of wine before hesitantly giving you a section 21 notice rather than just telling you to fuck off, scumbag

Actually it turns out that AB says his former landlord was good because religious and landlords are now worse because 'we live in a society that is moving away from the ethical anchoring of religion'.

Jesus didn't approve of black mold or greedy scumbags who make gain from their neighbours by means of extortion, imo

AB is doing a Pasolini style act!

From that point of view very little functions...I agree to an extent though on a personal/small group level I reckon it's possible to exercise a bit of control about certain behaviours. I think with a left leaning platform it's not an impossible ask.

The bottom line of any private media company, left leaning platforms included, is always going to be profit, what happens on a personal/small group level is irrelevant to that, you'll always end in "is mastercard a queer ally?" territory. So instead of individual morality, I prefer to think of left media in strategic terms, a little like the structures of the labour party: something that can occasionally be mobilized to the left's advantage, but not something you should ever invest loyalty in or expect loyalty from.

Like I was thinking of certain publications around libcom that I've read bits from. Small groups, publication is erratic at best and so on. A different set of problems there but at least they know what they are talking about wrt landlordism.

Of course the preening “Gary’s Economics”, the man in the know, telling unexpected truths to a reverent audience (look at Walker & Bastani’s faces) is incapable of this sort of argument though.

— Tom Gann (@Tom_Gann) April 22, 2023

Agree with this. I don't like the person being discussed.

"@garyseconomics thinks anti-landlord politics can - at times - look like middle class people punching down."

lol, what an utter prick

if you are going to defend the politically indefensible and haven't got any coherent argument, just accuse anyone from the left of being myopically middle-class.

I fear that 'preening' is correct. Not keen.

They’ve definitely got our vote Basti.#WorldBollardAssociation

— World Bollard Association™ (@WorldBollard) April 24, 2023

AB on GB News ... at Buckingham Palace!

The @Telegraph & others are campaigning for the U.K. taxpayer to subsidise Tom Ford shoes & Gucci handbags for tourists who come to the U.K.

If you buy a suit you pay VAT, but if a tourist buys the same suit your taxes pay for their discount.

WTF?! pic.twitter.com/oby739x8Qz

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) May 4, 2023

who even gives a flying shit about subsidising tourists? The eejit wants to be a spokesperson for the Taxpayers Alliance now

Novara is good now.

The thing the East German Communist dictatorship was most successful at was building a wall to prevent people leaving and shooting those who tried.

Disgraceful to think people who write this nonsense were welcomed by the hard left leadership that poisoned Labour under Corbyn. https://t.co/aMLPSVN4Es

— Ian Austin (@LordIanAustin) May 8, 2023

Stfu!

I have one real regret with Fully Automated Luxury Communism. I got something very badly wrong…

I didn’t have the courage to back my hypothesis as strongly as I should have. More & more people I speak to think an artificial general intelligence is possible in the next decade… pic.twitter.com/5FIX6qzb7P

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) May 18, 2023

My basic problem with FALC, tho I enjoy the style & general bravura argument, is that its economics are duff. Sure you can imagine Romer AK model will run forever and we can all be infinitely rich, but it is increasingly clear our core growth models fail to describe growth… 1/n https://t.co/07soTLxsyA

— James Meadway (@meadwaj) May 18, 2023

Ok this is actually good.

We’d pay a cleaner our freelance rate, yes.

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) May 19, 2023

Strong, though rambling, statement from Allardyce.

Big Sam on AI and job layoffs.

Mr Allardyce is welcome on @novaramedia to discuss automation and climate change any time @LUFC! pic.twitter.com/XqyY4LsnIt

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) May 19, 2023

William Blake said that the idea God would have ever have a singular voice was unthinkable because a voice is by definition a finite thing and God is infinite, and you've got ppl like this going 'ooohhh this one chatbot software knows my subway order, what have we done?' https://t.co/ApGmZCfBXX

— Nettles #ElbitIsGuilty (@problemcl0wn) May 21, 2023

Really outstanding answer from Arnold Schwarzenegger explaining the rationale of protest groups like Just Stop Oil. pic.twitter.com/pU4Z9cBNH3

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) May 21, 2023

AB is set to become a father for the first time. I'm glad for him and his wife, who is plainly a generous and sincere person.

In terms of Novara content I imagine it will go along with AB mellowing further and more often telling assailants "you're a grown man, log off and enjoy life with your children".

I'm not certain re the original substance here - think Creasy had a better point than usual in the first place - but AB is correct to say that this is juvenile and totally inappropriate from an elected parliamentarian.

If I'm reading this right, Stella misread 'racist' as a 5-letter word and thought up an absolute slam-dunk on this mistaken premise. https://t.co/C6rWKxPkMz

— The Jim Foundation #PCFA (@DunceFoundation) June 10, 2023

I think it's forgivable for even an elected parliamentarian to be juvenile in response to something this inane, this is just Bastani mindlessly repeating random arguments he remembers from that Matthew Goodwin book he was so taken with, despite them not really having anything to do with Creasy's original post (also the five letter word she's referring to is 'bigot' surely?)

I think one of the lesser understood aspects of why politics is toxic, is how politicians and figures from the centre, presented with politics now being quite hard (low growth & polarising views) call everyone they disagree with a racist and a bigot. https://t.co/RSEZL5xC8H

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) June 10, 2023

Sanctimonious dross there from Creasy who not for the first time needs a serious self awareness check

AB becoming a father shouldn't affect Novara's content?

AB likes big, high-achieving men who achieve things like print publications and play sport. (I don't know the person he's talking about here.)

😮 Bookforum re-launch

📰 New Nation website dropped

✍️ Finished a Jacobin print issue

💪🏼Organised 1st DC conference for socialist elected officials in a century

💍 Getting married…tomorrow??

All while having a black eye from basketball?

What’s @sunraysunray taking?? pic.twitter.com/DA1Toc02yQ

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) June 22, 2023

Like AB, I'm glad to hear of BOOKFORUM being revived.

the big high-achieving man with the big portfolio of achievements is Bhaskar Sunkara (never heard of him tbh)

personally I'm always more impressed with people who keep walking out of jobs, never getting ahead, struggling with addiction issues, failing at relationships, failing at life etc... Anyway why would having a black eye prevent a left-wing political writer from achieving any of these?

"Bhaskar Sunkara"

Believe he is the publisher of Jacobin, took over Tribune etc.

Also a melt. Will tell you to vote for Starmer.

so that's why AB is doing such a sycophantic brownnosing post, very undignified

The man is dumb.

Hear me out.

A left populist leader would go to Rupert Murdoch’s summer party.

And they’d go straight up to the lizard of Oz & tell him to pay tax in the U.K, or relinquish control of his media assets here. They’d also add Leveson 2 is coming. Then they’d grab a G&T.

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) June 23, 2023

damn, a more equal society. wish I'd thought of that. you stupid cunt. pic.twitter.com/lqX79e5rdr

— jan (@janhopi) June 24, 2023