Interview with Huffington Post’s Cenk Uygur

By Ayesha Siddiqi

In 1908, a progressive movement against the Ottoman monarchy actively swept across the political, intellectual and artistic spheres of the region and successfully set up a constitutional framework for people. This later became known as the Young Turk revolution.

Diskord recently got the chance to interview Cenk Uygur, the main host of the show and a regular blogger for The Huffington Post. He is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Law School, and a former associate at the law firms of Drinker Biddle & Reath in Washington, D.C. and Parcher, Hayes & Liebman in New York City.

The Interview

Q. As a graduate of Top Ten schools, what pushed you to pursue a non-linear path? Do you have any advice for college students who want to break into journalism, but feel pressured to follow more ‘defined’ occupations?

Two things pushed me toward a new path: An unstoppable drive toward my true passion and an unending boredom with my legal job. My advice to you is terribly clichéd – do what you love. Life isn’t something you go through to get to something else. You will work so much harder and get so much more accomplished if you actually do something you enjoy. Money is earned; success comes naturally if you do what you were born to do.

Q. There are some hugely controversial posts by you out there, for instance: ‘If You’re a Christian, Muslim or Jew – You are Wrong’. How is the backlash to such articles? How do you deal with negative feedback?

My old Jamaican girlfriend had a saying that I have adopted – if you don’t like what I write or what I do – sad day for you. Yes, there is sometimes strong backlash to articles I write, but I’m certainly not going to stop writing in order to avoid the perceived offense of others.

Nine out of ten times, I couldn’t care less about the negative feedback. But if I think someone is making an intelligent, valid point about something I wrote, then I take that very seriously. Since I am open-minded, I have an enormous advantage. If I’m wrong, I simply change my position – and then voila, I’m right again. Seems simple, but people almost always debate to prove how smart they are, not to determine what is true. If you can let go of your ego, then you can always be right (a little ironic).

Q. You’ve played a big role in the development of new media – what roles do others like you and TYT volunteers play? What can they add to political debates?

What we add to the debate is honesty. Right now, most of the major media is structured around the all-important concept of access. The political channels need access to the politicians, so they suck up to them. The entertainment channels need access to the celebrities, so they suck up to them. This creates a powerful incentive to be fake and not deliver the actual news to your audience. And this creates an enormous competitive advantage for us. Simply by not selling out the truth for access, we can pick up a huge portion of the audience. To put it more bluntly, people are tried of the bullshit and we don’t bullshit them.

What can others add to the political debate? Anything they want. That’s the beauty of the new media. You Tube is international television and it costs almost nothing to put yourself on. There are no gatekeepers anymore, so go crazy. Dare to believe you can make a difference.

Q. As college students who have been following your political blogs for some time, we find your views on how arguments are structured in politics and the news quite thought provoking. Could you briefly tell us about your analysis of Roger Ailes’s ‘orchestra pit theory’, in simple terms?

Roger Ailes came up with the “orchestra pit theory,” which says that if two candidates are debating the Middle East and one makes a trenchant point and the other falls into the orchestra pit, the one who fell in the pit is the one the news is going to cover. This observation leads to the conclusion that the most important thing is to grab people’s attention and then lead them in the direction you want. Substance is not rewarded, attention grabbing is.

This plays out on Fox News almost on a daily basis. Fox News personalities fall into the orchestra pit night in and night out (I think Beck lives there). But what’s important here is that once everyone is paying attention, they control the conversation. It’s not the answer; it’s the question that matters. Once they frame the debate, everything else is window dressing.

Q. Your analysis of how Michael Moore and Alan Grayson have managed to shift arguments with conservatives in their favor, by using the same sort of table-turning techniques that the Fox and the Republicans have typically favored, is also really interesting. In your opinion, what are the dangers of liberals adapting Fox-like argument structures as Moore and Grayson have—does it ultimately hurt progressives to engage in that level of discourse, or are such arguments the only way to forward a liberal agenda today?

You need a mixture and context matters. Right now, the debate in this country is so skewed in favor of the right that we need many liberals doing head long dives into orchestra pit to balance the conversation (and the attention). This is where Grayson and Moore come in. Grayson is the perfect example. He says something inflammatory about how Republicans want you to die quickly. Everyone chastises him. Then they ask the question he wants to talk about – are Republicans causing the deaths of more uninsured by delaying and blocking health care reform? Yes, Grayson got bruised on the way in, but he changed the conversation to one that is very favorable to Democrats.

Later, if the context changes, then I would counsel Democrats to go lighter on the orchestra surfing. And if they start over-doing it one day, I would consider it my job to point it out and hopefully provide some corrective balance. But today is not that day.

And once you have people’s attention, I would hope that you would make an intelligent argument. There is a time for trenchant observations about the Middle East, and that time is when everyone is listening.

Q. Where does Obama’s rhetoric—’which preserves the decorum expected of the presidency but often fails to provide rallying points’—fall into this? What are the broader implications of his administration’s challenge to Fox?

So far, Obama has been puddin’ soft. You need balance between tough talk and reconciling with your enemies. For eight years, we had nothing but tough talk. But the proper remedy to that is not eight years of listening to your opponents without effectively challenging them. Obama understands the value of diplomacy and smart politics. But he underestimates the value of a good punch to the mouth (politically speaking, of course).

However, Obama is on the attack against Fox now, which is very good news. It’s imperative to point out that Fox is doing opinion journalism because the real damage they do is when people confuse their stories for real news as opposed to Republican propaganda. If the White House changes the conversation to how biased Fox is, they can’t lose. It’s not the answer; it’s the question.

Also, their willingness to stand up to Fox might a harbinger of good things to come in how forcefully they take on their political opponents. The idea of bipartisanship with this current generation of Republicans is a pipe dream. Hopefully, we one day get back to a country where bipartisanship is possible. But today is not that day.

Q. What do you think about the chaotic international situation? (This is an extremely open-ended question – do you have any strong opinions specifically related to Iran, Pakistan, or the Arab-Israeli crisis?)

We can and must do diplomacy with Iran. They are not cartoonish madmen; they’re rational actors we can negotiate with. You don’t get to negotiate with your friends; you have to negotiate with your enemies. And part and parcel of negotiation is that you don’t get everything you want. If we’re realistic, we can solve that problem.

Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world. We have to push them on routing out Al Qaeda (we haven’t pushed nearly hard enough before) without endangering the balance of the country. It’s imperative that the democratic government win out in the struggle against Muslim fundamentalist insurgents and the political struggle against their own army. That is a very delicate balance.

Both sides have to be realistic about what they can get in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I don’t believe there can be a meaningful Palestinian right of return. Israel will not and cannot negotiate away its existence by allowing right of return. On the other hand, Israel pours salt on the wound of the occupied territories with settlement expansion. The settlements are poison to Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects.

The United States must have the power to actually influence Israel, in ending settlement expansion for example, for there to be any hope of peace. Can the US actually make Israel listen (for its own good)? There has to be consequences for not listening to us. If the US isn’t politically courageous enough to do that, then the chances for peace are a lot slimmer.

Q. Lastly, does TYT offer any opportunities for students to get involved? Are there any internships, shadowing externships, etc?

We are always open to internships. Almost everyone who now works here started by working for us as a volunteer. In the digital age, of course you can volunteer or do an internship from somewhere other than the physical location of our office. If you prove yourself smart and valuable to our operation, then we’ll very seriously consider hiring you. We’re interested in people who help us grow and get bigger and better. My advice to all the people who work for us is – make yourself invaluable.

The effectiveness of the show is evident in its increasing popularity. On the official website, a particular line resonates: ‘The real revolution is in daring to be honest with people. We don’t patronize our viewers or lie to them. We have real conversations and deliver the news honestly’.

Judge the show for yourselves. The Young Turks currently airs in several places, including XM Satellite Radio’s America Left, channel 167. TYT also has partnerships with AOL News, TidalTV and YouTube. Their segments are also available on their official website, theyoungturks.com, and as podcasts.