Over the course of a lengthy, wide-ranging interview (which eventually aired in New York on Sunday, Feb. 15), Mr. Karzai made several surprisingly frank admissions. Yes, his government was full of corruption, he said. But things are getting better. He suggested that if Mr. Obama is to send in two or three additional brigades to Afghanistan, he should focus the troops on the border with Pakistan. He dismissed reports of Iran aiding the Taliban. And he said that U.S. forces will not be able to leave Afghanistan soon, “because the task is not over.”
At one point, Mr. Zakaria asked about recent reports that Mr. Karzai’s brother is involved in the drug trade. Mr. Karzai responded by alleging that seemingly every time he has a disagreement with the Americans over such things as civilian casualties, the U.S. leaders respond by leaking stories about his brother to U.S. papers.
“I’ve never heard a head of state make such a direct charge,” said Mr. Zakaria afterward.
Watching Mr. Karzai struggle to answer Mr. Zakaria’s questions about his political shortcomings was not unlike watching a hopeful presidential candidate in the U.S. trying to pass the test of the Sunday morning talks shows (and, in fact, the last time Mr. Karzai appeared on GPS, back in September, Mr. Zakaria pressed him to announce his candidacy for reelection on the show—a move reminiscent of the late Tim Russert). That said, Mr. Zakaria does not consider the other Sunday morning gabfests to be direct competitors.
“That kind of Washington inquisition has become a made-for-theater event,” said Mr. Zakaria. “These guys come with their talking points. The point is almost to say nothing. The questioner is desperately trying to make news. The whole thing I find intellectually very uninteresting.”
On the heels of the interview with Mr. Karzai, The Observer wondered, who was now at the top of the GPS wish list? Mr. Zakaria said that he has been trying for a long time to book Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Not long ago, he had lunch with the Russian foreign minister to discuss the possibility. At the end of January, he met with the Mr. Putin at an off-the-record event at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Ultimately, however, Mr. Putin passed over GPS for Bloomberg News.
“I can tell you my theory as to why,” said Mr. Zakaria. “Given how the ruble is performing, he thought it was important to speak directly to a certain segment of investors and economic actors in a desperate hope that it would stop the Russian economy from going into a tailspin.”
American audiences are notoriously allergic to international news. And domestically, GPS remains a haven of high-mindedness for a relatively small audience of American viewers seeking a refuge from stories about tragically missing children and outrageously fertile mothers. Year-to-date, not counting this past Sunday, for which the holiday weekend has delayed the reporting, GPS is averaging 901,000 total viewers, with 247,000 in the coveted 25-54 demographic.
“I think American audiences have a certain fatigue of the sameness of coverage: a kind of unending incremental coverage of the rest of the world, where they don’t understand why this is important,” said Mr. Zakaria, when asked about the apparent lack of demand for international news.
The trick, he said, was to continually press interview subjects to explain why the subject at hand matters to Americans—that is, to answer the “So what?” question.
“This is not the National Geographic Channel,” said Mr. Zakaria. “We’re not doing exotic tales from the Sahara or something. There’s got to be a reason this is urgent and important and you need it to make sense of your world.”
fgillette@observer.com
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