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Dori not happy with his BBC interview on Trump
Aug 2, 2016, 1:53 PM | Updated: Aug 3, 2016, 7:18 am
I was so ticked off Saturday night.
I get a phone call from a number I don’t recognize. I typically never answer those kinds of calls, but, for some reason, I did with this one.
It’s a guy with an English accent who wants to know if I would talk about Donald Trump on BBC.
I assumed I was being pranked or scammed somehow. Turns out, I went on with the BBC when the Seahawks were in the Super Bowl down in Arizona. (Just more proof that national and international media give me more credit than people in my own state.)
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Anyway, they wanted to talk about the fact that the first two presidential debates were scheduled opposite Monday Night and Sunday Night Football, which are among the most watched programs on TV.
The Sunday Night game is a marquee matchup between the Packers and Giants. Who watches NFL games? Predominantly white males, Trump’s primary constituency. If they have a choice between football and debates, nobody will be picking politics. Trump claimed that the NFL sent him a letter complaining about this (which they later denied) and that Hillary and the Democrats scheduled this on purpose to screw him over. This has also been debunked – a nonpartisan commission on scheduled the debates last September, when Trump was but a glimmer in the eyes of other Republicans. Still, it’s stupid to do the debates opposite the most watched shows.
So, BBC calls me up. They said the interview would be 5:30 p.m. I juggle my schedule – since, you know, Saturday is my party night. Then they tell me they’re running a bit late and that it won’t really start until 5:50 p.m. They said the interview would be five or seven minutes long.
Of course, my interview ends up jammed right up against the top of the hour and the first minute is the hosts opening question.
Afterward, the producer comes on and says, “Sorry it was a bit truncated.” I thought, “A bit truncated?” It goofed up my whole Saturday evening schedule to listen to his one-minute long question?
Media at its finest.