Jared Taylor is upset because he talked to CNN and – surprise, surprise – he discovered that they are going to make him look bad on TV. How unutterably stupid do you have to be to voluntarily speak to the media these days? How difficult is it to understand that they are your sworn and dedicated enemy? Of course, the guy – he must be a Boomer – is still convinced that the executive producer who set him up is sincere and professional.
In April, CNN asked me for an interview with one of its hosts, Fareed Zakaria, as part of an hour-long program on “white nationalism.” I was reluctant. Programs of this kind don’t try to understand why people become “white nationalists.” They just dismiss them as “racists,” “haters,” and “white supremacists.”
I reluctantly agreed to the interview, writing to Miss McGuirk: “Against my own nature, I grow cynical. Still, I will permit myself to hope that the word ‘hate’ will not be in the title of your program and that my interview will not be sandwiched between footage of goose-steppers and cross-burners.”
CNN’s investigation of white nationalism will air on June 30, according to a note I received from Miss McGuirk:
The program is scheduled to run this Sunday night at 8PM ET—and Fareed will also feature part of your interview on his program at 10AM and 1PM ET. One caveat—when news breaks, CNN will sometimes postpone the air time. If that occurs, I will let you know the next air time.
Miss McGuirk did not mention that the title of CNN’s hour-long, even-handed, “serious treatment of White Nationalism” is called “State of Hate: The Explosion of White Supremacy.” This somehow undercut her cheerful assurance: “I believe you will feel your views are presented fairly and thoroughly.”
Liza McGuirk has been unfailingly prompt, professional, and polite. I cannot bring myself to doubt her sincerity. She edited the program, and maybe it deserves a different title. I will leave it to others to decide.
People have occasionally asked me what I think of Jared Taylor. Since I never paid him any attention at all, I did not have an answer for them. Now I do. I think he is stupid, naive, and attention-seeking.
What part of “don’t talk to the media” is hard for these idiotic narcissists to understand? This sort of thing is precisely why I don’t do interviews with anyone anymore. I learned my lesson after that Sad Puppies interview with Wired in 2015. No more interviews, period.* Not with CNN, not with YouTubers, not with aspiring journalists in high school, not with journalism majors at university, not with the New York Times, and definitely not with [insert your favorite content creator]. Don’t bother asking me if I will talk to [fill-in-the-blank]. The answer is no.
The only reason I will do the occasional interview is if I happen to know and trust the other individual. But if I want to talk to someone, I’m much more inclined to talk to them on my turf and on my terms, rather than on theirs.
*Although I turn down the vast majority of interview requests I receive, I have made a few exceptions over the last four years. I talked to Amanda Robb of Rolling Stone about the success of Castalia House, which interview she later tried, unsuccessfully, to use in an NPR hit piece about comics. I also talked to Bleeding Cool as part of their retraction of falsely labeling me a “white supremacist”, I talked to Jesse Lee Peterson as part of his fund-raising week, and I occasionally talk to Alex Jones and Owen Benjamin on their shows. Given the way in which Ms Robb subsequently tried to interfere with our crowdfunding at Indiegogo and how the Bleeding Cool editor-in-chief lost his job after the 17,000-word interview ran, the evidence suggests that even these exceptions were unwise.