MIA

I don't think Hirschberg wanted to set anything straight. Like a lot of successful, entertaining profilers - Lynn Barber being a British example - she knows she gets readers and juicy commissions by posing as someone who will take no bullshit and will tell The Truth about a celebrity, which is great when it rests on insight and tough questions, and a bit cheap when it relies on snarky asides and vindictive selective quoting. I will always read these writers, because mean can be fun, especially if you don't like the interviewee in the first place, but I don't think they have any greater agenda. They're the highbrow equivalent of gossip mags which print pictures of celebrities' cellulite under the defence "We're just trying to bring them down to the readers' level."

"incoherent political pop stars, they're just like us"

Pretty much, yeah. This school of journalism in a nutshell: "She think she all that but she ain't all that."

You know who really takes M.I.A. seriously? M.I.A.

Anyway, what really emphasized the piece as a takedown piece was M.I.A.'s stupid, incoherent reaction to being taken down. Sort of an ipso facto thing.

"highbrow equivalent of gossip mags"

Yup.

"Anyway, what really emphasized the piece as a takedown piece was M.I.A.'s stupid, incoherent reaction to being taken down."

I thought MIA's reaction was pretty coherent actually.

Posting the phone number was stupid.

Recording the interview and posting contrasting unedited footage is actually kind of brilliant and hilarious, if paranoid to the extreme (although you could argue it's not paranoia if someone is really out to get you; makes you think she read the Courtney Love piece before going on the interview)

Posting the phone # was childish, no doubt (but really funny as was Hirschberg's "John from Bard wants to hook up" response) but not really incoherent.

ha yeah, that response almost justified posting the number

I halfway wonder if they coordinated this sometimes

Phone number funny. Unedited footage fantastic. Diss song? Let's not mention the diss song.

oh haha, I forgot about the diss song

I'm thinking that maybe everyone should stop doing diss songs for a while

What was coherent about her posting some of the interview but not all of it? Did she record all of it? If not, why not? Did she only record those two bits? If so, why those? Did she record more but not post it? If not, why not? Could she possibly have more on tape that makes her look worse than the piece does? Who knows? That's what I mean by incoherent.

Interestingly, that was very a very incoherent explanation.

Huh, I thought I made sense, though I did set myself up for the zing. But were those the only two bits of the interview she took issue with, or the only two she had the means to refute?

yeah that was way more about me not being able to resist an easy joke than you not making sense, sorry

although it does seem to be kind of a weird thing to worry about

http://nighthawknews.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/allpresmen.jpg

"Why did she only mention those extracts? What else is on the tapes?"

"But were those the only two bits of the interview she took issue with, or the only two she had the means to refute?"

I think she figured posting an entire hour-ish long interview was less effective that just pointing out two instances where the writer was clearly playing fast and loose with the facts and letting people draw their own conclusions about Hirschberg's ethics/motives.

But turnabout is fair play, is it not? How is MIA furnishing those two bits of tape recorded over the span of a few days any more trustworthy than the piece? It takes two to play fast and loose in this case.

I mean, why did she think to record the interview at all? Or does she just record everything, all the time? Like Prince? It's just so weird all around.

I think you should do some investigative journalism on this burning issue

"How is MIA furnishing those two bits of tape recorded over the span of a few days any more trustworthy than the piece?"

It's not. But both of them undermine the trustworthiness of Hirschberg's piece which was the desired effect.

"I mean, why did she think to record the interview at all?"

You've never read Hirschberg before, have you?

It's not just about Hirschberg -- I think it's not really uncommon for publicists (if not quite stars themselves) to record interviews just in case. If you're misquoted, or even if a fact-checker gets in touch to confirm something, you're better off having your own copy!

As someone who's had a couple of paranoid interviewees bring recorders along, what amazes me is that Hirschberg, seeing MIA's recorder, thought she could get away with messing around with quotes. Unless MIA was wearing a wire, which would be brilliant on many levels.

From a purely selfish journalist's point of view, Hirschberg is like the abusive boyfriend who makes it hard for all future boyfriends.

[nabisco], publicists totally listen in on interviews all the time, but really, I think the number of interviews counter-recorded are pretty rare. It takes someone with a track record of paranoia. Again, like Prince. Or hey, maybe even MIA!

Which actually does really emphasize the (totally compelling, I know) mystery. Was the recorder hidden? Did MIA expect to be misquoted? Then why sit for the interview at all if she didn't trust the interviewer? Why not threaten the reporter by revealing the recorder at the start, since that would have preempted any tomfoolery? Just odd.

my understanding is that prince refuses to be recorded--remember that controversy from the nyer a year or two ago where the reporter quoted him condemning gay sex, and he said he didnt, and there was no record because he didnt want to be recorded

would've been funnier if the CIA had been recording the interview

xp

xp Prince does record all interviews, AFAIK. But most interviewers are allowed only a pad and paper. Like tons of interviewers, for that matter. Who really thinks those massive off the record New Yorker pieces or investigative epics are all on tape in Seymour Hersh's trunk somewhere?

Anyway, the artists most likely to counter-record are also one presumes the artists most likely to say something stupid or get misquoted, right? So the secret recorders one would think would be a lot more pervasive, frequent and forthcoming in their refutations, considering they're the ones that set and sprung the trap. So why doesn't this happen more often?

The CIA are about to post their own recording, along with their own diss track.

xpost At one point Prince nixed even handwritten notes, so someone I knew had to go and talk to him for an hour then come out and scribble it all down in the bathroom. Don't really know how you can complain about being misquoted if you do ridiculous shit like that.

I think Fuzzy Dunlop had something to do with this.

I've never had a subject bring a recorder to my interview but actually that scenario is 1000 times better than publicists sitting in, which just feels invasive to me, since I don't micromanage their working days.

I've interviewed people over the phone before where I asked them a question, they responded with "uhhhh...." and then this third party I didn't know was there chimed in and said "they can't answer that."

"Was the recorder hidden?"

Why does that matter?

" Did MIA expect to be misquoted?"

Clearly.

"Then why sit for the interview at all if she didn't trust the interviewer?"

Cuz it's still the New York Times.

I like the middle of nabisco's essay -- especially his tone, which is my favorite thing about his writing, actually -- but the beginning is ehhhh and this part confused me:

A lot of people seemed to read that Times piece and feel like M.I.A. was being exposed as somehow fraudulent. If she is, it's not because she's so politically "wrong"-- it's that her cloak has slipped for a second, and people have noticed just how much it's something she enjoys putting on.

Too unspecific a remark, I think. Substitute "Madonna" or, yeah, "Joe Strummer" and it still resonates, but doesn't capture the uniqueness of The M.I.A. Problem, especially as he's described it in the previous grafs.

Cuz it's still the New York Times.

So better to be misquoted than to not be quoted at all?

Too unspecific a remark, I think. Substitute "Madonna" or, yeah, "Joe Strummer" and it still resonates, but doesn't capture the uniqueness of The M.I.A. Problem, especially as he's described it in the previous grafs.

I have an opinion on that but it is unnecessarily inflammatory (ie, racial)

x-post to Alex in SF: That's even more cynical than I give her credit for, tbh. Hide a tape recorder to catch yourself being misquoted by a journalist you don't trust just to get into the New York Times and then fight for a correction? Byzantine.

well now i'm all curious, dan!

same here!

Well it's inflammatory because it's easily deflatable but I think there's an element of "magic Tamil" (for lack of a better phrase) going on here where I think there is some overt or subconscious expectation that having brown skin and spending some time growing up in Sri Lanka will automatically make M.I.A. into a sage, consistent and reliable narrator on events there. Where those inconsistencies pop up, they aren't taken as part of the environment she grew up in across her entire life and the people she's associated with; they're instead betrayals of some idealized image of her that seems to be hammered much harder in her case than it is for white performers doing similar things, and I think this pretty much is a reaction to dark-skinned people nonchalantly talking about violence fascinating and scaring white people.

"So better to be misquoted than to not be quoted at all?"

I think the line of thinking is that if you are misquoted that it's good to have tape recordings to prove that you were misquoted. It's pretty clear that this was win-win for her whether or not the piece was "trustworthy" or not. We're still talking about it a week later after all.

It's pretty clear that this was win-win for her whether or not the piece was "trustworthy" or not. We're still talking about it a week later after all.

Oh, how the bar has been set low.

It's pretty clear that this was win-win for her...

Uh, no.

Do you guys actually not understand how publicity works?

HI DERE, I think you're way off if you don't think MIA is totally presenting herself as an "authentic" voice. This isn't just people seeing dark-skin and going, "Oh, she must know what she's talking about." She definitely has a very insider thing going on. Even lyrically, she has this kind of poetic obscurity where you don't know what exactly she's talking about, but you trust that's because she knows something you don't.

"Even lyrically, she has this kind of poetic obscurity where you don't know what exactly she's talking about, but you trust that's because she knows something you don't."

Like the guy in Bush.

Or Michael Stipe!

Right, but not like Madonna really who is pretty easy to parse.

See, this leap from "personal experience" to "mouthpiece for Sri Lanka" is kind of exactly what I'm talking about.