Many thanks to Peter Barry Chowka for patiently sitting through C-SPAN's airing of William Ayers so the rest of us did not have to subject ourselves to Ayres and his preening nonsense. A few notes on BookTV's format from a former employee of C-SPAN:It is quite common for BookTV to air such a program during a literary fest such as the Chicago Tribune's Printers Row festival. However, it is not as common for the network to air three hours of the In Depth program without opening the phone lines to a flood of callers to ask questions of the guest so that they may challenge him or her, and offer opportunities to elaborate on passages from books and articles. As to the relative anonymity of the interviewer, that is par for the course for the network. The interviewer at C-SPAN, whether it is Brian Lamb or one of the lesser-known on-air employees acts as a facilitator. The goal is to stay as impartial as possible, to let the guest being interviewed have the chance to explain himself...(Read Full Post)