Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Media whirlwind

Greetings from rainy Roma after 36 hours of non-stop media.

Those of you who know me well [or even not so well] know that I generally enjoy doing media appearances. It's not the publicity [I have enough of that] but the chance to make my voice and opinions heard to large audiences, e.g. one of the BBC shows I did yesterday [a BBC/Public Radio co-cooperation] gets 40 million listeners.

There have even been elements which have been rather surrealistic. For example I talked to Irish radio walking to the taxi stand near the Colloseo [where the gladiators used to do their thing -- I am by now so used to living 5 minutes from it I pay it no mind].

I talked to Australian radio while tryiing to hail a taxi.

[I wonder what their listerners made of it when they heard me say -- in the middle of a sentence about the Holocaust -- "Take me to St. Peter's"? (St Peter's is adjacent to the BBC offices or, should i more properly say, the BBC offices are adjacent to St Peter's.]

And I talked to the BBC for the 18th time while drinking cappuchino.

Normally this would give me somewhat of an adrenalin rush. But, given the circumstances and the potential fallout, this isn't fun... it's emotionally draining... and troubling.

Yet I feel that it is important that my voice -- and certainly not my voice alone -- be heard saying "Censorship is not the way. We can wiin this battle with history, evidence, documentation, and the truth."

Ciao.

1 comment:

Shaul Gedalyah said...

Good morning from Portland, Oregon! Based on your comments about this trial that you made at your recent lectures in Portland, I'm not sure that you are entirely pleased with the verdict. But surely the fact that Irving's views are once again repudiated, and that in Austria, must provide some measure of satisfaction.

What did NOT please me was the tone of the NPR report this morning. I did not catch the reporter's name, but his characterization of Irving's views as "controversial", rather than "false" when "quoting" your views on his trial, seemed to completely miss your point!

I would love it if you would send a letter to NPR to correct this reporter's misquote.

Thanks again for what you do...