http://flv.france24.com/WB_FR_FACE_A_FACE_12H12M0107.flv (*) http://flv.france24.com/WB_EN_DEBATE_19H12M0107.flv (*) http://flv.france24.com/WB_EN_FACE_OFF_12H12M0107.flv (*) http://flv.france24.com/WB_FR_DEBAT_19H12M0107.flv
Jérôme is in the videos marked (*).
I found the second English debate highly entertaining. Not only is Andrea Sanke the second cutest presenter, but she gives Jérôme the evil eye a couple of times :) My impressions, in no particular order:
* Andrea didn't quite expect to hear what Jérôme had to say.
* The American University professor looked somewhat hostile at first, especially when Jérôme began by saying that Ukraine doesn't pay for gas, but once Jérôme dropped a few names of shareholders and politicians, he started nodding.
* I feel sorry for the Russian journalist. Those phones are always breaking up at the wrong time :)
Analysis: I think the contrast between the presenter and the expert guest is fairly significant. My impression is that Jérôme did not do very well in this interview. The narrative is too far from what people expect right from the beginning, and sounds much like a conspiracy theory. The expert was convinced because Jérôme was in command of facts, percentages, and the names of the players, but the presenter had no such relevant background knowledge to help her believe that Jérôme isn't a bit of a crank. I suspect many television viewers don't have much background either, sadly :( -- $E(X_t|F_s) = X_s,\quad t > s$
http://flv.france24.com/WB_EN_DEBATE_19H42M0107.flv (*) http://flv.france24.com/WB_FR_DEBAT_19H42M0107.flv
Analysis: In the second part, the Russian journalist is replaced by a Harvard professor, and the show gets quite lively. Most of the time is taken by Jérôme correcting the Harvard guy, who is distinctly uncomfortable at having his fundamentals questioned :) My impression is that, while generic tv viewers can't really decide whose facts are correct, Jérôme looks quite comfortable and good at thinking on his feet.
However, I wonder if too much smiling is detrimental to the seriousness of the points. Another more superficial point is that Jérôme is debating two professors, but he has not been introduced by his own title. Since Jérôme's claims are being questioned by established authorities, that puts him at a rhetorical disadvantage - an ordinary viewer who has no knowledge of the facts will put more weight on the words of a professor or doctor than an editor of a magazine or website.
It's a pity that Jérôme's last statement was the end of the show. -- $E(X_t|F_s) = X_s,\quad t > s$
The only question which came to my bind is how come the Editor of the European Tribune also finances pipelines? A true all rounder!
The prof. on the panel was a generalist who could point out some larger issues but had no specific knowledge of the Gas industry.
The American dude was a Russian hater who had drunk the cool aid - everything was all about Russia trying to manipulate the west. He conceded their might be some Oligarchs in there as well, as this feeds into the western perception of Russia as mafia country, but no one was able to explain why these Oligarchs would want to disrupt he flow of gas to the west.
The US dude also complained that Gasprom was prepared to sell gas cheaper to Armenia (who are not trying to join Nato) than they are prepared to sell to Ukraine - which is trying to join Nato - as this was evidence enough for him that this was all a dastardly plot by the Russians to punish western leaning nations. (Has he never heard about pricing eing all an=bout what the market will bear? And that Ukrfaine has effectively been paying nothing in any case?
Given the complexity of the subject I thought Jerome did remarkably well. I must say I would always have a notepad and pen in front of me to enable me to doodle or jot down rejoinder points - and perhaps look less fidgety. However overall, I thought Jerome was remarkably in control for such a complex subject.
My only major concern would be his confident prediction that this will all be over in a couple of days. Commercial disputes can drag on for a long time, and there is no need for Jerome to give such a hostage to fortune - his thesis doen't depend on this all being resolved in a couple of days, so why risk being discredited if that doesn't happen. (I would have thought a banker would have been more careful about hedging his bets!! :-) notes from no w here
If I was your employer I would be thinking:
In a draft on this issue that has not been used for publication, I wrote:
So are we, at this moment, watching the mother of all gas battles between Russia and Ukraine? The chances are that the dispute will be settled behind the scenes and a makeshift compromise offered to public view - that Western media will accept without too much scrutiny because the narrative of the Russian bear threatening Europe is, for several reasons, a compelling one.
"International observers", "EU monitors", seem at the moment to be the puppets of this compromise, and a return to gas supplies for Europe is being touted this morning on that basis. As soon as they register a token presence, things should calm down.
People on ET have the strong advantage, when viewing the videos, of already knowing what is being said as well as what is not being said. Everything Jérôme brought up in the interviews has been discussed and challenged here before, and we trust his judgement on these issues.
An ordinary viewer of France24 has no such knowledge. Jérôme is unknown. This is the first time the viewer has seen him, and he is introduced as an editor of ET, which the average viewer has never heard of - European Tribune sounds like some kind of newspaper, but it's not on the shelves to be bought. Nobody knows he's a banker working in energy (**).
The ordinary viewer does know the face of the show's presenter, and knows the faces of regular guests. I don't know if the other guests in those interviews are regulars or not, but (ceteris paribus) the title of professor at the American university of Paris, and the Harvard logo plastered all over the other professor's video background does stack the credibility in their favour, again, for the ordinary viewer.
The facial expressions of the presenter in the first part, too, IMHO, do not help to gain Jérôme credibility towards ordinary viewers. What certainly does help Jérôme's credibility is when the other guests nod approval.
Remember, the ordinary viewer does not verify facts - he judges the performance on the day. When all the guests approve of a statement, then that is evidence of statistical correlation with the truth and makes people trust the person who makes the statement. When guests disagree, that causes people to wonder a little bit if the person making the statement can be trusted.
Jérôme did an admirable job at gaining credibility when he corrected Goldman in the second part of the interview, but my impression is that he lost a lot of credibility early which he had to claw back, and I don't know the final total. Again, credibility matters much, I think, because Jérôme has no standing with the ordinary france24 viewer to begin with.
In all the interviews, I feel that Jérôme has a tendency to make shocking statements early. Things like Ukraine doesn't pay for gas, for example. This is a shocking statement, it flies in the face of common sense. To the viewer, a person who makes such a statement is either a nutter, or (possibly) a smart person who wants to shock. Because Jérôme is unknown and has no trust capital to begin with, I believe most people put him in the nutter category. Then he has to reclaim authority by explaining things, and he certainly manages to do it. Overall, I think that's a rhetorical mistake(*).
The smiling in that case doesn't help either. When somebody makes a statement while smiling, they advertise that the statement shouldn't be taken at face value. But in the beginning, Jérôme hasn't said anything yet! So the very first thing he's saying is: dont' trust my statement, or maybe: I'm not taking my role seriously. It does not build credibility.
The other problem with making gratuitous shocking statements is that it puts the other guests on the defensive, and ipso facto sends a message to the viewers that there is no agreement here, so what's said cannot be simply trusted.
Finally, I'm not sure I agree with all the smiling during the argument with the Harvard professor. It was obvious that Jérôme was enjoying nailing him, but the question is what did it look like for ordinary viewers? For me, it's possible that Jérôme came across as argumentative - somebody who enjoys contradicting people for the sake of contradiction rather than truth. Of course facial expressions are involuntary, but I think that a face that conveyed sadness at having to correct the misinformation propagated by Goldman would be (rhetorically) preferable.
(*) It would not be such a rhetorical mistake if he was introduced as an investment banker with $NAMEOFBANK specializing in energy. Of course, he's not introduced that way, and the blunder is in forgetting that he hasn't been introduced in that way.
(**) Would Goldman have been more circumspect if he had known? He clearly didn't know, since Jérôme had to point out that he studies the gas industry as part of his job. Did the other guest and the presenter learn this factoid during the break? They seemed to me somewhat less hostile in the second part.
p.s. There's an interesting contrast with the French big debate, in which Jérôme didn't take part. It's true that in the French debate, there was no need to counter British or American narratives, but ignoring this important point, what struck me was that many of Jérôme's points arose in that debate as well, but in a much less controversial manner.
The journalist Pierre Lorrain expressed and defended many of Jérôme's ideas. I don't know if he learned them from Jérôme's articles or independently, but in terms of pure television - and I don't intend to be offensive - I think that Lorrain was better in Jérôme's role than Jérôme. He's a good television commentator worth emulating, and I applaud france24 for picking him. For example, he started off with the same idea that Ukraine doesn't pay Russia as Jérôme, but didn't try to make a shocking point out of it. He actually gained credibility straightaway (IMHO) by sharing facts like a teacher. -- $E(X_t|F_s) = X_s,\quad t > s$
That's one of the pitfalls of my position, where I comment in a personal capacity but using expertise which is to a good extent of professional nature (which I cannot bring up officially). In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I found interesting that Pierre Lorrain had the following byline: journaliste, écrivain, spécialiste de la Russie. It doesn't point out his affiliations, but still reassures the viewer, even though objectively such descriptions are of course meaningless. In your FT article, you're "an investment banker" first, and an editor second. Since you're not employed by a university, it might also be a good idea to list your doctorate in some bylines - just to get appearances right of course.
In the end, what really matters is what you say though, and I think in that respect you have nothing to improve at all. -- $E(X_t|F_s) = X_s,\quad t > s$
However I viewed Jeromes' objectives for the interview quite differently. He is not going to have an appreciable effect on public opinion in just one discussion anyway, but what he CAN do is establish himself as an interesting and independent new voice who should be consider for further programming opportunities by program makers and (say) conference organisers.
In this context, what is important is that he is:
You don't want some party hack who is just going to mouth some generalised clichés as Pablo did in the first discussion.
Thus if you take Jerome's primary objective to be to establish himself as a new, independent, credible, and authoritative voice suitable for consideration for future programming on energy matter, then I think he succeeded very well.
The finer points of his presentation to a popular audience he can work on - once he becomes a more regular contributor on these kinds of programs! notes from no w here
Launched on December 2006, FRANCE 24 is the new 24/7 international news channel. Its mission is to cover international current events from a French perspective and to convey French values throughout the world.
That's a pretty broad demographic, you're certainly part of it :)
-- $E(X_t|F_s) = X_s,\quad t > s$
Secondly, The answer to the question: Who is to blame, Russia or Ukraine? Is really quite simple.
We are - for not having a coherent energy policy... notes from no w here
