With all the deserved criticism being directed towards the BBC for its anti-American bias, they do deserve credit for one program: Hardtalk with Tim Sebastian. This guy is a pitbull - when he smells a weakness in his interview subjects he bites, and doesn't let go. I haven't figured out where he stands politically. I suspect that he despises all politicians and world leaders equally, which come to think of it can be a sensible attitude. He's a joy to watch, also when he rips apart people I agree with.

For the last week he's been touring the Middle East, and having friendly little chats with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, including from Hamas and settler groups. He's still down there, so be sure to catch him if you have BBC World.

Not to pick fights with you on purpose, but I must say that I loathe Tim Sebastian. That guy deserves to be punched on the nose. I followed European media for quite some time when I spent 6 months in Finland last year, and he encapsulates European media arrogance to the fullest.

Since when should journalists be our moral arbiters? Most journalists follow the Jerry Springer strategy: wade into the riff-raff and position yourself as the calm voice of reason and sensibility, one that viewers can easily identify with. Actually I'll take Jerry Springer any day over Tim Sebastian: at least he aims to entertain.

Journalists like Tim Sebastian are a little above lawyers, - but way below prostitutes - in terms of societal value.

Have to agree with comment here - I loathe Mr Sebastian's smug, bullying style. Only when an interviewee is ruder than him and sticks to his/her guns does Mr Sebastian stop pushing his own line and actually appear to listen to the interviewee's answers.

Markku: When I think of media arrogance, (which isn't unique to Europe), I think of reporters who hide their bias behind fake neutrality, who uses experts as proxies for their own opinions, who hides their arrogance and smugness behind polite words.

I prefer the confrontational style, and I like journalists who don't try to hide their bias. In my view, confrontation is honest, and neutrality usually isn't.

The man in the middle style you're talking about works when there are several guests on the show, and the role of the interviewer is to keep the conversation going, flush out differences, etc. A one on one interview is different. If the interviewer doesn't ask tough questions, and if he doesn't follow up evasions by repeating those questions, a smooth talker will turn the interview into a press conference, and there are already more than enough of those. Tim Sebastian takes this to an extreme, and you may like that or not, but whatever is the problem with the European media, I don't think he's part of it.

Tim should smile more often. He looks good when he smiles.
His program Hardtalk is great.

I follow Tim's Hardtalk avidly and I do like his pugnacious style , actually its the right approach to take with the unctous powerful folks he faces. As for journalists not being the moral arbiters Markku who is your moral arbiter ? Its quite obvious you are quite moral since you sound like you think prostitution is all wrong . Now where did you pick up your moral values ? Dont tell us that you invented them all ? so you imbibed them right ? I find Tim's opinions or ideas as can be gathered from his interviews are good enough for you to imbibe as well.

I think Bjørn is right. I dont know about style or whether Tim Sebastian is more like European or any other mediaperson. But when it comes to getting information or where a certain person stands on, no one does it better than him. Throw off all pretences, rhetoric and spin, Tim gets people to tell their story straight without any spin from their language. He makes people stick to their core values. Most leaders wear of veil of rhetoric and spin on their sleeve. Tim tears this down. I think that is why most people (atleast in Asia) admire him.

The core difference I find with European and US media (its more like Rest of the World and US) is than US media presents their own views rather than be objective and stick to the news. Just watch Fox, CNN and the BBC for comparison for the same piece of news and you will get the difference. Fox us unbashedly right wing becoming the US administration's mouth piece on steroids, CNN International has lately toned down with rhetoric and their patronization.

But the best thing about Mr. Sebastian and his HARDTalk programme is the research these people do. Full facts in paper. In fact, I havent seen any person interviewed by him argue about his facts, not even the Israelis. This suggests respect for the interviewer. The other part of his personality is he is willing to be the second person. He can argue from a totally contrary point of view and that is something to admire.

I like Tim's style. if not for his style, the programme would have been thrilling. hardtalk with other interviewers are not very interesting to me. They are just soft talks.

As a journalist I have endless admiration for Tim Sebastian. He has every quality (and more) required for the perfect interview. That Tim was born with a complete set of interviewing skills is obvious: his research abilities, neutral and unafraid tone, along with the equality he so obviously practices astound! However, only in Europe would his level of intelligence, curiosity and courage be allowed to flourish. If the US had ever had just one interviewer with even half the skills Tim has, the present empty (and equally evil) headed morons in its administration would never have scored even a single seat. Keep it coming Tim!

Hardtalk is one of the best programme's on BBC World. It's my lifeline. An intelligent man, great interviewer because Tim Sebastian has clearly done his research and really tries to get to the bottom of things.
Tim sometimes pisses me off when he appears not to let people speak (but this is when I tend to agree with the intervewee he's giving a hard time to!)
I think you can tell when he likes or dislikes someone - sometimes he doesn't shake hands at the end.
I think that any intervewee with nothing to hide, and a similar wit has nothing to fear from going on the programme. On the contrary, there's nothing I like more to aid the digestion of my tea than to watch someone being eaten alive by Mr Sebastian. It's not his job to entertain (unlike Jerry Springer!) but to inform, educate and uncover the truth. Top notch half an hour...

Tim Sebastian is indeed a superb interviewer. Mr. Sebastian serves as my benchmark for all journalists who do what he does. Whenever I see people doing interviews in the news or in any show, I always imagine what if Mr. Sebastian was doing the interview. He just seems to put in the right and relevant questions all the time, and much more, he dynamically and spontaneously involves himself with the issues at hand, which projects --at least in my case-- the viewers own feelings and thoughts. He shows a great passion for truth, that is why he doesn't let go if he is not satisfied with the answers or even more with contradicting ones. Hardtalk is a very intelligent, informative and a very very interesting show.

Dear Sir,
Could ask the American and british senior officer why they went to iraq war and what for the war and what they got???????

thanks,
limu

I like your straight attack to the person. Could ask the American and british senior officer why they went to iraq war and what for the war and what they got???????

thanks,
limu

Tim is consistenly drawing attention of all those who wish to witness 'unchallenged egoists' being grilled LIVE.

He deserves kudos making politicians and many legendery personalities of masses feel humbled, who otherwise think themselves as 'the cream of society'.

Personally, I am grateful to this splendid personality ,Tim, for inspiring me to learn English language and be a journalist.

As I am the first individual in my entire family who could learn this foreign language and live as a journalist in Delhi, the capital of India.

Thanks a lot Tim!

: Sandeep Datta
919818761680

It runs with the world, as no matter how logical one may be, at some point he or she is confronting somebody. Many people have many opinions about Tim, but what I found in him is a sincere journalist without any prejudice or bias just goes after those who matter. I didn't see him that he was hard while talking to Hammas and soft with Israelis, but he was equally annoying for both parties and frustated leaderships of both sides. Same way where ever he goes, he does research very well and just goes for getting the truth from otherwise very eloquent leaders. Though sometime he does it very badly specially asking pivotal but disputed questions from politicians when their whole election campaign may get unbalance with one reply. And if person avoids his question, he would keep on pushing and sometime he smiles too... But I would say keep it up Tim and keep on doing your hard talks, someday these will bring some nice change in the world.

Tim Sebastian's interviews are almost always very interesting. He is certainly one of the best journalist in Europe. Comparing him with Jerry Springer is like comparing apples
with oranges; Jerry is far from being a journalist.

Now, Tim almost always manage to grill his
interviwees. One exception was Claire Short. Did everyone watch that interview ? Too strong personalities collided that day! I think Claire did better. I would like to know if other people agree---or more exceptions to Tim's grilling.

Thanks for that insightful comment! It makes interesting reading, especially when I need a payday advance .

Trackback URL: http://bearstrong.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/223