ABC hangs up on Monckton. ABC Local Radio presenter Adam Spencer hung up on Christopher Monckton on air this morning, earning a sharp rebuke from listeners complaining Spencer let his politics show and forcing the Sydney breakfast host to get the climate skeptic back on the line to air his controversial views. The station says there’s been a “huge reaction” in an encounter sure to inflame critics of the broadcaster.
The 6.40am interview began badly as Spencer — a mathematician who has presented a number of science programs on the ABC — questioned Monckton’s claims to lordship. “It [my passport] says I am the Right Honourable Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. So get used to it,” he snapped. And his “honourary” Nobel prize: “That’s what we on the centre-right call a joke. That’s what you and the ABC on the centre-left wouldn’t understand.”
Spencer pressed Monckton on the science but was branded “deliberately hostile” — “that’s what the ABC is infamous for in this debate” — and “childish”. “I’m actually going to try and get a word into this interview now, so you shut up and listen,” he said. Finally Monckton suggested unless he could finish an answer he would end the interview. Spencer obliged: “We will finish the interview there, it’s 10 minutes to 7 on 707, that’s not going anywhere Lord Monckton and you know exactly why that’s going nowhere. My apologies for not getting to the questions that we wished to.”
Before 7am, after numerous calls, Spencer offered an apology of sorts: “My apologies for the method in which I terminated my interview with Lord Monckton there. It felt completely dysfunctional on both sides. In retrospect I should not have hung up on him, I should have tried to get a word in to say I was terminating the conversation as he suggested that I do.” Caller “Matt” was allowed to rebuke the host, who he said was “aggressive” and “disgraceful”.
Station manager Andy Henley told Crikey more than 60 calls were received during the program, roughly split into those who supported Spencer and those who believe he wasn’t fair. Producers chased Monckton to have him back on the program and after 7.30am Spencer said he’d “been good enough to call us back”. The second attempt was more civil, but ended with a plea from the visiting skeptic: “Please don’t conduct interviews like that again, it wasn’t very pleasant…” To which Spencer replied: “It wasn’t very pleasant for me or the listeners either, sir.”
Henley says Adam acknowledged the interview “went dysfunctional” — “there was no light being shed by anyone” — but he’s comfortable with how the former Triple J host handled the encounter. But he also knows the reaction from some sections of the media will be fierce. Stay tuned. — Jason Whittaker
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Congratulations, Adam Spencer, on asking the questions other news and phone hacking corporations won’t. Perhaps next time you can get around to asking him how his HIV cure is going.
Mr Monkton was rude, and Adam was trying to have a conversation. Unfortunately, he got under Adam’s skin, but that’s not a hanging offence. The way Alan Jones treated the PM was far worse. I like listening to Adam, having switched-over since 2UE went feral earlier this year with Jason Morrison replacing John Stanley and Sandy Alouisi. I’ve heard Adam being respectful to whole ranges of opinions, and his show most of the time doesn’t deal with politics, rather more interesting things. What’s scary is how charlatans like Mr Monkton and their limpets are really good at only one thing, and that’s manipulating the masses via emotive rhetoric.
Spencer had little to apologise for. Monckton is a skilful political strategist and knows how to dominate interviewers by eating up as much time as possible with his long-winded answers.
Knowing that time on radio programs – especially at breakfast – is limited, he rabbits on, then has the temerity to complain he’s being shut down when the host tries to move the interview along or challenge what he says.
Monckton tried to knock Spencer over by challenging him several times to back up his questions with examples or sources — which Spencer did. That’s what got Monckton’s goat up.
His claims deserve scrutiny; he cannot dismiss interviewers as ‘hostile’ for doing their jobs of making him and his claims accountable.
Hmmm, what’s his phone number? I think I’d like to hang up on him a few times as well.
About time the ABC showed a bit of ticker like Adam and simply refused to air minority hate views like Monckton’s and the Big Polluters.