Hostility Is Not Journalism. Mehdi Hassan Take Note.
There is a clear difference between tough journalism and outright hostility. One serves the public interest. The other serves the ego of the interviewer. Unfortunately, the recent exchange between Mehdi Hasan and presidential spokesperson Daniel Bwala fell squarely into the latter category. What viewers witnessed was not a serious interview. It was an attempted public ambush. From the outset, the tone was aggressively confrontational. Questions were framed less as inquiries into governance and more as prosecutorial traps. Responses were repeatedly interrupted before they could develop. Clarifications were brushed aside. The atmosphere was unmistakable: this was not a conversation designed to inform viewers but a spectacle designed to embarrass the guest. Serious journalism does not operate this way. The craft of interviewing demands discipline. It requires the ability to ask difficult questions while still allowing the guest to articulate answers. It requires intellectual c...