Interviewing for accountability

Abstract

Abstract During the National Policy Institute’s national conference in Washington D.C. on Saturday November 19th, 2016, Richard Spencer delivered a speech in praise of the election victory of President Donald Trump. Shortly after the conference, Spencer was an invited guest on the News One Now programme in which he participated in a 32-minute interview with black journalist, host and managing editor Roland Martin. Drawing attention to the ideological aspects of the Martin/Spencer interview performance, we adopt the analytical lens of the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Musolff 2014; Reisigl and Wodak 2009; Wodak 2001, 2009) to explore argumentation as a discursive strategy through topoi or argumentative warrants (Reisigl and Wodak 2009; Wodak 2009, 2011, 2015; Wodak and Boukala 2015).