Long conversations with Bannon and AOC

How people responded to NPR interviews with polarizing figures.

NPR has been standing up a new forum for open debate: a series of video interviews that turn up on all its biggest platforms at once.

It’s a soft launch rather than a big announcement—though you may have seen the opening conversations. In March, we talked with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In April, it was Steve Bannon. These are happening about once per month, for now.

The initial concept is a big, hard discussion with someone who is a real participant in events. Sometimes a polarizing figure. Someone you see in white-hot sound bites and video clips, who might be compelling to hear at greater length. Someone with a complicated story to tell or a lot to explain. It also has to be someone who’s willing to put up with my questions! Because nothing is off-limits in these discussions. My job is to be independent and ask real questions that are on my mind—not to be “hard” or “soft” or “left” or “right” but to be real.

As a reminder, that’s the public record of my voter registration. In any case you can be a Democrat or a Republican or anything else and do great journalism. The test is the journalism.

These interviews turn up on Morning Edition; on our podcast Up First; on a special podcast episode; on YouTube; on Instagram; on the NPR app; and many places besides. One way or another it reaches a large percentage of the NPR audience.

Here are the interviews, with some analysis to follow.

The responses to AOC and Bannon are as illuminating as the interviews themselves. Each is a prominent figure for their side. Each is also a symbol for the other side—a symbol of everything they can’t stand!

It’s struck me for years how often AOC appears on Fox News. She is a leading character of the Fox cinematic universe. That, in any case, was my impression, and Fox confirmed it with the NPR interview. An exchange with AOC caught the eye of another Murdoch publication, the New York Post:

National Public Radio host Steve Inskeep spoke to the congresswoman, who won office initially during Trump’s first term, about where she and her party stand now.

“To what extent is immigration, as an issue, part of your problem with working-class voters?” he asked.

“I guess my question would be, what does the word ‘problem’ mean?” Ocasio-Cortez replied.

“People voting for the other side and not for you,” Inskeep clarified.

Their summary was accurate, as far as it went! Fox News then went on to replay and discuss the exchange as many as four times, including an extended analysis on its popular program The Five. Of course the panel’s opinion was that she sounded horrible (except for the panel’s liberal member, Jessica Tarlov, who felt that AOC was trying to duck an uncomfortable question and wasn’t allowed to do so.)

Fox’s interest may have spread AOC’s views farther than they otherwise would have gone. AOC’s fans definitely also got the interview through other channels. And if you wanted AOC with more context, fuller versions of the interview were available in any format you might like.

The response to the Bannon interview was also revealing. Bannon’s fans, like AOC’s, spread it far. Meanwhile, some progressives denounced NPR for interviewing him at all. A selection from X:

Given how much X, as a platform, rewards negativity, this selection of comments counts as unusually positive.

Whenever people parrot words like “platforming” and “normalizing” they raise some questions for me. I’m not sure people realize that when you say these things, you are assuming that all news is propaganda. You are assuming that a news organization should only cover people with your point of view.

A news organization should cover all kinds of people; and if you find them to be wrong or dangerous that is all the more reason for you to keep an eye on them. I have interviewed literal members of the Taliban, Chinese communists, Iranian clerics, members of Hamas and Hezbollah, Libyan extremists, a Nigerian warlord and a Venezuelan crime boss in prison. What is the reason not to examine an American political figure of the left, right or fringe?

The reason to talk with Bannon is the same as the reason to talk with AOC: He’s an influence, and has a following. Tim Miller, the former Republican strategist who left the party after the January 6 insurrection, clearly doesn’t agree with Bannon politically. Yet he follows Bannon’s regular webcasts and podcasts. From Morning Edition:

TIM MILLER: Bannon has understood the MAGA voter better than basically anybody on the right… The language that he uses, the policy positions that he takes, are kind of a window into where the Republican Party is going

Do these kinds of interviews spread peace, love and understanding? Well, probably not the first two. As for understanding, it depends on how you engage with them. As noted above, some people resist even paying attention to some figures; and some media selectively pull clips from an interview that reinforce their current business models.

Social media, and a lot of traditional media, are wired for the short attention span: to enrage you in the shortest possible time.

But my job is to cover the world as it is. It can’t be expressed in an half-second. For those with a little longer attention span, there is a lot of value in these longer takes. Not marching orders. Not propaganda. An extended, challenging talk with someone who is in the news, or who influences public debate.