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here to watch Al Gore's interview with Hannah Betts for Times Online
Al Gore is a curious figure in contemporary culture. Over the past few years,
he has achieved, almost without anyone noticing, something you would have
bet good money was impossible: this middle-aged former politician with
conservative taste in suits, most famous for losing an election, has become
astonishingly hip.
Because the interview is tricky to arrange, we finally manage to speak at 9pm
on a Friday night, while he’s in San Francisco and I’m at a music-industry
friend’s birthday party. I am seated in a white hotel bar, surrounded by
beautiful people, when my mobile rings, and Gore’s assistant, who has a very
loud voice, booms: “I have former vice-president Al Gore for you.” The
people at my table, and pretty much every table within earshot, fall silent
instantly.
I move away to talk to him, and I’m followed by a journalist from a style
magazine, who slips me a note begging me to ask what his favourite record
is. I can hear the whispered speculation: “Really, talking to Al Gore? He
couldn’t be. Really?” Trust me: if you interview a Hollywood star, you
usually get less interest than that.
Of course, starring in an Oscar-winner helps the cool factor. Gore’s polemic
on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, picked up Best Documentary at this
year’s Academy Awards, and his acceptance speech started with a wry “My
fellow Americans”. Indeed, one factor in his elevation has been his sense of
humour. Last spring, he hosted Saturday Night Live, delivering a mock
address outlining the state of America had he won and apologising for the
glaciers now attacking Michigan. He has also had fellow boomers rallying
round with posts at Apple and Google, which look pretty cool on any CV.
His latest move seems set to secure this reputation. This week, Gore is
launching Current TV, the UK arm of a hoped-for global network aimed at
18-to 34-year-olds, with 30% of its content provided by viewers. “We came up
with the plan for an independent channel after the 2000 election,” says
Gore’s business partner, the former Democratic fundraiser Joel Hyatt. “Al
wanted it to be a not-for-profit station, but I said that I didn’t want to
spend the rest of my life raising the kind of money we’d put together for
his election campaign, so we agreed to run it on traditional satellite and
cable models — advertising- and subscription-funded.”
In May 2004, Gore and Hyatt bought a small cable news channel, which they
relaunched as Current TV in 2005; it now reaches 39m US homes. The UK is the
next step in their expansion, and they hope to swap programming between the
two countries once our viewers start providing. “Hopefully, we’ll spark
another British invasion,” Gore, the old charmer, suggests. “The idea is,
essentially, to democratise TV.”
When I spoke to Hyatt, he suggested I ask about Gore’s “TV is feudalism”
theory. When I do, there’s a pause. Finally, after a little umming, Gore
relents and expounds, in his deep, slow voice: “Okay, under the feudal
system, wealth and power were intimately intertwined, and knowledge played
no mediating role. The great mass of the people were ignorant, and were
powerless because of that. If you wanted to be a writer, you had to become a
monk, and then you’d copy a dead man’s book in a dead language. The printing
press changed that. It could run off pamphlets, books or flyers cheaply, and
that led directly to the Enlightenment and the rule of reason.
“Then, 40 years ago, TV refeudalised the world. Television stations and
networks are almost completely inaccessible to individual citizens, and
almost always uninterested in their ideas. You want to work in TV because
you have something to say, and it’s like entering a scriptorium. You have
tolearn the way it’s done and rise up through the ranks, until, years later,
you’re pitching an entertainment idea to advertisers. Ironically, TV
programming is more accessible to more people than any source of information
in history. But it is accessible in only one direction. There is no
conversation.”
Current TV proposes to resolve this with an almost entirely interactive
programme model. Most of the station’s output is short-form, nonfiction
“pods”, which are like long YouTube clips, averaging 3-8 minutes. The
station’s UK staff of about 40 people will make some of these, while others
will be provided by the likes of Google or Lonely Planet. Viewers vote on
the station’s website for the pods they want to see, and so effectively put
together the schedule themselves. Then there’s the viewer-created content:
anyone can make ads, entertainment slots or news reports and submit them via
the site. Current TV screens them for dubious material, then puts eligible
pods into the mix.
“People have asked if this is me taking on the right-wing news media,” says
Gore. “And how does this sit with making the movie and the climate-change
slide show? Well, all these things connect into the same philosophy — to
build a sustainable, better and more live-able world. Democracy is crucial
to that, and I don’t believe democracy is furthered by TV in its current
form. I think democracy is in need of revitalisa-tion. But I’m not setting
up a counterattack on any channel. This is not a political station. It’s an
independent voice.” What do you do on a day-to-day basis at the station as a
former vice-president of the United States? I ask. “I add value where I
can,” he laughs, deep and slow. “I’m involved in almost everything. I sell
advertising, work on distribution, help with programming. And I wash the
dishes if that’s needed.”
So, how does that compare with the White House? There’s a pause. He says he’s
reluctant to talk about himself, that Current TV is the real story. I point
out that if the managing editor of CNN were launching a similar service,
he’d spend his time talking to the trade press. He relents.
“There is no position in the world that approaches the presidency of the USA
in terms of your ability to influence events,” he says. “Yes, I wish I’d
been president. Walking into the Oval Office v holding an Oscar?”
He pauses. “Hmm, I just self-censored an answer that would have made news.
Walking into the Oval Office can become routine, but I don’t think walking
into it as president would ever prove routine.”
The million-dollar question: does he plan to run?
James Cameron recently begged him to, The Washington Post says that his old
campaign team is looking to draft him into it, and The New Yorker’s
last issue had a piece by its editor, David Remnick, virtually pleading for
him to stand. “No, I am not planning to run for president,” he says firmly.
“I may become involved in politics at a different level, and I’ll always be
campaigning to combat climate change, but I have no plans to run.”
I suddenly see the piece of paper thrust at me by the style journalist and
decide, what the hell. One more thing, Mr Gore, I hear myself saying: what’s
your favourite song? He doesn’t even pause. “I Need to Wake Up, by Melissa
Etheridge.” You can’t have that, it’s from your film. That’s product
placement. He laughs. “There’s a new song by will-i-am that he’s written for
the SOS Live Earth concerts in July. It’s beautiful, but it doesn’t have a
name yet.”
Now, whatever you think of his politics, or his TV station, you’ll be hard put
to find another former politician who gets to hear rock songs before they’ve
even been given names.
Current TV launches on Sky and Virgin Media tomorrow
