SunScreener#21: Flat-Footed Feri's Easy Escape

We'd be lying if we didn't admit to being slightly impressed when we opened today's Budapest Sun and saw that the paper had nabbed a one-on-one with Hungary's number one newsmaker, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány. Well, that is, until we started reading the story resulting from the interview, which is so feeble and devoid of meaning we won't even accuse the Sun of taking money from the PM to make him look good.

While the average reader might get the sense that from the article that Sun correspondent Thomas Escritt wasn't in the same room as Gyurcsány, we are highly confident that the interview actually took place. Indeed, it shows all the hallmarks of the classic lowly-scribbler-awed-by-big-name-politician syndrome, in which the greenhorn hack's seemingly hard-hitting questions are deftly deflected by the self-important official.

But two things make this missed opportunity lamentable. First, if there were ever a politician who could be crucified in three or four quick questions, it's Ferenc Gyurcsány. Even setting aside the fact that his government is in near-collapse, Gyurcsány is as inarticulate and gaffe-prone as they come. The guy, quite simply, is helpless.

More to the point, the Sun actually has access to a few journalists with the experience and talent necessary to extract at least something from the opportunity offered by an interview with the country's BSer-in-Chief. In addition to columnist Adam Lebor - who has a nicely tart and insightful piece in the current paper about the French rejection of the EU constitution - we would even suggest subeditor Duncan Welch, now that he is regularly practicing his bluster on news agency's MTI's free-for-everyone-to-read-in-English daily briefs. And we can only imagine what rabid Style Fox Eszter Balázs would have come back with had she been unleashed on the hapless PM. In fact, we're glad Balázs didn't get a go at Gyurcsány, because we still want him to be in one piece when we get a shot at him ourselves.