Correspondent: But if you like to be liked, doesn’t this kind of get in the way of actually having to necessarily take conventions to task sometimes? I mean, you know…

Saunders: Yeah.

Correspondent: The other thing too is that, going back to Ben’s observation, I mean, I could actually possibly agree with him. Like you commented upon the big-screen TV with the Web access, but you didn’t, I guess, focus in on the fact that the Web is heavily censored in Dubai. Or, for example, you know, the ecosystem — the problems of that caused by the manmade islands.

Saunders: But see, but see, I think that the problem is if you — to my way of thinking, there are people who do that a hundred times better than me. If you want a comprehensive story about Dubai, Ben would do it better. You know. Kind of the journalistic version: go there and tell me everything I need to know. But these pieces never, you know, in my view, if you’re going for a week, you’re really saying, “Here’s one slice through the data.” So to me, it’s not . You know, I have a very, very limited talent, right. For me to go and try to be a true investigative journalist is — I would fuck it up. I don’t know if I can say that word on your…

Correspondent: You can say whatever you want.

Saunders: I would fuck it up. Because I don’t really — I’m not trained in that, it doesn’t interest me. So what I’m doing in these pieces is just saying, “Here is one subjective observer going in and seeing some stuff.”

The whole of this provocative interview, which also involves George Saunders challenging Our Young, Roving Correspondent on the merits of Borat, will appear next week on The Bat Segundo Show.

In the meantime, you can listen to this clip.