My favorite uncomfortable interview moment arises in a 1996 BBC segment featuring linguist and scholar Noam Chomsky. In the interview, conducted by British journalist Andrew Marr for the BBC show “The Big Idea,” Marr tells viewers he has come to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to talk to the professor and dissident about “bias in the media.” The interview came about eight years after the publication of Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s 1988 book “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media“; the term “manufacturing consent” that the two co-authors adopted refers to how mainstream media outlets shape coverage in order to present an agenda that benefits the ruling class.
The awkward moment, which Marr politely takes in stride, arises when Marr confronts Chomsky about his assertion that media figures like himself express opinions that reflect what the rich elites believe.