Well-known Spain-based football writer and broadcaster Sid Lowe interviewed Luis Suarez for the Guardian, published last Friday. While the piece generally follows the long-form player interview template, the manner in which Lowe dealt with the Patrice Evra incident involving accusations of racism has been received with some controversy, predictably from aggrieved supporters of Manchester United. This, for those who haven’t read it, is the offending passage:
The word negro in Spanish does not mean “negro”, and certainly does not mean the other n-word. In Uruguay, it is a word so widely used as to often be little more than mate. “In Spanish, in Latin America, there’s a way of speaking that is totally different. There are words you can say here that you could not say there and vice-versa. They would be taken in a totally different way,” says Suárez. But perhaps that is not even the point given that after three days of video evidence at a three-man Independent Regulatory Commission, lip readers produced no hard evidence that he said what he was accused of saying.
Before we get to the meat of this paragraph, there is an issue here with journalistic form that needs to be addressed. Long-form interviews have a long and complex history in mainstream print journalism, stretching back to Gay Talese’s influential piece for Esquire, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.” In light of the wide availability of video and audio interviews, the traditional print interview often relies on literary flourish to give the reader more than mere words to get their bearings. If anything, Lowe showed restraint by modern standards, omitting the noxious “I” from the body of the interview.
Lowe for example uses physical language to put the reader at Suarez’s side, and in doing so reveals the subjective view of the author:
[Suarez] walks past the European Cup, past the rows and rows of boots and trainers, and up the stairs, taking a seat in an office overlooking the fields, still in his kit. He talks well; occasionally with eloquence and always with a self-awareness that is striking, even a little disarming.
While this is standard stuff, it does reveal the central limitation with the literary long-form interview: lack of clear and distinct journalistic disinterest. It’s generally impossible to take literary license in an interview while at the same time maintain strict objective distance from the subject and his or her views, although one can come close. Of course, if an interviewer wants to avoid any and all perceptions of bias they need only reprint a transcript, but that would make for a pretty boring read.
Chances are, Lowe has his own views on Suarez, views that probably flatter the Uruguayan’s view of allegations he racially abused Patrice Evra. Yet the way he relates Suarez’s defense, with supporting arguments outside of the quotation marks, is actually true to journalistic form. Essentially, Lowe is filling in the argumentative blanks in Suarez’s account of what happened. It’s an old element used in fiction and non-fiction alike, an extension of narrative voice.
Lowe could have pressed him on some of the inconsistencies in his story or included a throwaway paragraph or sentence undermining Suarez’s convictions, but this subject matter has been covered exhaustively elsewhere. Even if Lowe had he done so, he would have been subject to abuse from the Merseyside precinct of the Nuance Police.
Doing so would have also taken away from the final product, especially as the interview doesn’t even primarily involve the Evra allegations and the subsequent ban, but Suarez’s own problems dealing with his anger on the pitch and his adjustments to Liverpool under Brendan Rodgers. Lowe, unlike some other writers, has enough faith in his readers’ intelligence to clear the space for them to make their own conclusions about Suarez’s character—a player who admits he experiences anger on the pitch while maintaining he had no malicious intent in his dealings with Patrice Evra.
This was perhaps Lowe’s biggest mistake. That this incident has become more about Lowe’s interview and less about Suarez’s contradictory remarks is indicative of a rabidly partisan fan base that, in solidarity with their contemporaries in American politics, measure their victim-hood in relation to other clubs against the yardstick of media bias, often perceived and sometimes real. Football fans—angry, needy, emotional—need approval from their symbolic Press Daddy. Without it, they tend to throw tantrums.
The core of the Suarez/Evra dispute has never been about the two players, their clubs, and their supporters but instead those institutions still ostensibly bound by the dual requirements of empirical fact and sound reason: the media and (insert joke here) the FA. To this day, Liverpool fans are convinced domestic media gave John Terry a pass for racism while condemning Luis Suarez. And blogs like the Republik of Mancunia—a blog styled in Pravda-like Red Army lettering—seem incapable of appreciating the irony of a fan blog making the case a national newspaper is biased against their club.
There is some good to come of this: even Lowe admitted on Twitter he could have improved the interview. Yet he also quite rightly noted painting Suarez as a pariah would serve no one, particularly for a reading audience in a nation with fans that failed to see the difference between booing Suarez and booing a national anthem. That lesson, as usual, has been lost in the 140-character rancour.
In the article you’ve linked on rom, Sid Lowe said on Twitter that Suarez told him that he didn’t use the word “negro”, despite telling the FA that he did.
Do you not think that Lowe had a duty as a journalist to ask Suarez to explain this lie, rather than trying to cover it up, and distract morons with reference to “lip readers”, as though this was the John Terry case?
Lowe is a great journalist but his credibility has taken a hit here. His decision to write a ridiculously pro-Suarez article, totally ignoring the findings of linguist experts in the case, obviously has nothing to do with Jen Chang, Director of Communications at LFC, being Sid’s former boss at SI… Let’s just hope doing his mate a favour was worth tarnishing his reputation.
“trying to cover it up, and distract morons with reference to “lip readers”
“obviously has nothing to do with Jen Chang, Director of Communications at LFC, being Sid’s former boss at SI… Let’s just hope doing his mate a favour was worth tarnishing his reputation.”
He might have screwed up. He might have allowed Suarez’s words to carry too much weight. (And in fact he admitted to mistakes on twitter, where there were loads of tweets). That might have damaged his reputation. He might have failed to reflect the report properly. But don’t you think those are fairly serious and unfair accusations? To say he TRIED to mislead people, DISTRACTING them. Tried to do a COVER UP (not much of a cover up when everyone can read both the interview and the report). And the accusation that he was doing his mate a favour. What favour? Liverpool would be better off just keeping silent, I think. That all seems quite a serious and quite offensive accusation to make to be honest.
Suarez said something stupid, but Sid Lowe has been more than correct to continually point out from an Uruguayan perspective Suarez’s use of “negro” does not mean what the English press has insinuated. Whether or not Suarez said the word negro in a derogatory manner is a case of he said/he didn’t say. The FA ruled against Suarez. Done.
But I also agree with Lowe, who is not just now writing this argument for the first time, that the FA wilfully ignored that ‘negro’ in Southern cone Spanish does not have the same connotations as ‘negro’ or other racist words in English.
Uruguayans reacted very strongly in their country to the claims that they are racists for using the word ‘negro’. During carnival in Montevideo the custom – that comes from the historic mixture of African and European cultures – is to celebrate with satrical musical presentations by different groups known as ‘murgas’. They satire contemporary culture and politics through the lyrics of the music. Every murga used this incident to satirize their perceived discrimination at the hands of the English press and players and in defence of Suarez. Lowe is trying to make this point because he does have an idea of what the Southern Cone culture is about, unlike a lot of the English press who do discriminate against South American football(ers) without any consideration or knowledge.
er what? The fact that he and Evra were in the middle of an argument during a game between two massive rivals makes this friendly/non-rasist use of the word hard to believe. Suarez had kicked Evra in the knee moments before and then slapped him round the back of the head. Whilst “negro” can be used amongst friends in Uruguay, independent language experts also acknowledged that this word can be used in a racist way too. If Suarez meant it in a friendly way and not a racist way, why didn’t he shake Evra’s hand and why has he never apologised for calling him it? Surely if a person innocently calls someone a name which they interpret to be racist, the first thing they would do is apologise wholeheartedly for any offence caused, no?
Because, Evra also accused Suarez of calling him “negro” in a blatantly racist way more than half a dozen times. Suarez, to this day, denies it. So in Suarez’s perspective, he was falsely accused by Evra.
On that note, the way I read Lowe’s article, and his reference to the “lip-readers”, was in that context: that there was no way of subatantiating that Suarez ever called Evra “Negro” multiple times in succession.
Not to mention Suarez has been in Europe for about 10 years or so? He certainly must know what that word means there….
At the end of the day, I guess whether you criticize Sid Lowe’s article depends on what you expect out your media. Lowe stepped into a minefield in a sense that he wrote an article that was going to inevitably wade into an issue where people have already made up their minds on both Suarez and Evra.
But the post hit the nail on the head in that Lowe allows the reader to form/reinforce their own feelings on the subject, but IMHO I don’t need him to ask tough questions or present a perceived balanced argument; I can make up my own mind. When media puts themselves out as reporting fact that is instead blatantly editorial and presumes to tell everybody what opinion they should have, that’s when I have a problem.
All you have to do is say “I think…” in front of a sentence and you’re covered.