MEDIA NEWS:

Australia’s peak body for journalism academics says Irish celebrity chat show host Graham Norton has done a better job interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin than former US Fox News star Tucker Carlson.

Professor Henny Jonningham (below), chair of the Combined Universities’ Newswriting Tribunal, said its research ranked the journalistic standard of recent interviews of Putin other than those conducted by Russian state media.

“Our research gave the Tucker Carlson interview of the Russian leader the lowest ranking on several grounds,” Professor Jonningham said.

“The biggest factor in the low ranking assigned to the Carlson interview was the obsequious approach he took his questions and questioning.

“In the words of our researchers, it was more like a human enema than an interview.

“The top-ranked interview with Putin was, in the view of our researchers, conducted by Graham Norton on his UK-based TV talk show. (main picture)

“Even though The Graham Norton Show is noted for its host’s lightweight and gossipy interviews, Norton’s questioning of Putin was still streets ahead of Carlson’s.

“Our researchers put it down the fact that although Norton adopts a very frivolous style, Putin didn’t leave the Norton interview with his rectum and perineum licked clean as he did with Carlson,” Professor Jonningham said.

She said Norton had even managed to extract what appeared to be an admission from Putin during the show’s “Big Red Chair” segment in which studio audience members sit a red chair to tell a story and either walk away or are catapulted backwards out of sight by Norton pulling a lever.

“Watching the segment, Putin advised Norton that if he wanted to get rid of people he should consider poisoning them or throwing them out of an upper-floor window,” she said.

“Admittedly he laughed as soon as he said it. Or let out a maniacal cackle to be more accurate.

“But it did at least give an insight into Putin of the type that the Carlson interview didn’t.”

Professor Jonningham admitted that researchers had difficulty ranking interviews with Putin.

“In fact while we placed the Norton interview first and the Carlson interview last, our researchers were hampered by the fact that in recent times there have been only those two interviews that have been conducted with Putin,” she said.

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