Tuesday, December 05, 2006

MERCER WITH TAYLOR

During the Liberal convention on Saturday there was a point when Rick Mercer was in the CBC booth with Peter Mansbridge and Mansbridge tried to get a few serious comments out of Mercer on the proceedings. Mercer mostly dodged and didn't come up with much.

However, Stephen Taylor was able to get a much better interview with Mercer on the floor of the convention - seen here. The interview lasts several minutes, some very good questions are put to Mercer and Mercer gives some interesting responses. I kept waiting for Mercer to crack a joke, but it didn't come until the very end, and even then it was small one. In fact, this is the most serious I've ever seen Mercer, of course I've only ever seen him on television (except for that one time when I ate lunch at the table next to his at a patio on The Danforth).

I suspect the differences in the interview had a lot to do with the setting. I think Mercer probably felt he could abandon his professional T.V persona somewhat for Taylor's guerrilla convention coverage. Much has been made in certain quarters about the potential shown by Taylor's convention coverage - particularly with regards to its ability to undermine the mainstream media.

I think that the more professional Taylor's and similar coverage becomes, and the wider audience it gains, the more its content will become like the established media. However, that still does not change the fact that Stephen Taylor did a much better interview with Rick Mercer than Peter Mansbridge did.

Posted by Matthew @ 9:52 a.m.