The Jack Rice show appearance...

Went okay.

Frankly, he came in a bit sensational and so I felt like I spent a lot of my time dialing down his implied statements, such as "America is building two dozen bases in Africa right now." I hate to let things like that pass on-air, because they're so misleading. So you do your best to not get trapped in answers that misinform more than they inform.

So I'd give myself a B- maybe, but I don't think I could have done any better given Rice's initial tone of alarmism. I realize he has to make everything sound quite dramatic, but I pride myself on providing strategic perspective, so there's a natural tension there.

Sean will post any archive link once it becomes available. The show goes on for another hour, so maybe later today.

Comments

[Christopher Thompson]

I think you are a little too hard on yourself, or are grading based on talking to a military audience. After having read your original article which was a little oblique, I think in the interview you clearly summarize and put in context the narrative of the article.

[Tom Barnett]

It what ways was the original article "oblique"?

I don't ask defensively, but rather to gain insight in how readers of various knowledge approach the piece. When you write for Esquire, you're spanning the spectrum of awareness (i.e., from people who've never heard of what you're talking about to people to track it intensely), so there's always this huge debate on how much background knowledge you can assume. Very tricky, so always looking for feedback.

[Christopher Thompson]

By "oblique" I meant that the narrative style of the article leaves it to the reader to fill in gaps that you and probably you usual audience would consider obvious. However after hearing you talk on the same subject of the article, I realized that you were filling in the blanks that I had filled in by reading your blog and books. Maybe it was Rice's alarmism, but it forced you to nail down a number of these points. And maybe it is just me, but your galloping narrative style, while entertaining, lulls me a little and I appreciate it when you slow down to hammer home and give context to some of the underlying points.

[Tom Barnett]

Fair enough, and what I suspected.

It is stunning to write 6k and feel like you're covering only about 10% of your reporting, but there it is. So you balance the galloping pace with your desire not to leave anyone behind, narrative-wise. it is no mean trick, as I discover each time I try.

Frankly, that's why the State of the World piece was so much fun for me: by discarding the narrative you could cover so much ground. But once in, your temptation to go very dense is almost overwhelming, meaning you demand even more from your audience.

I will confess, whenever pushed, I always rationalize by saying, "I'm not going to speak down to anyone, but expect them to read up." Unfair on many levels for the reader, but I won't publish stuff I can't read years from know because they come off as too simplistic. It's a choice you make, I guess, and learn to live with.