The answer is in the question
You often hear Zen Buddhists say that the answer is in the question. And sometimes you’ll hear interviewers taking this quite literally, as in this example from Australian breakfast show host Alan Jones during a 2004 interview with treasurer Peter Costello:
Treasurer do you ever shake your head during campaigns like this and wonder what it’s all about? Because you have been there for eight years, you have created 1.3 million new jobs. You’ve seen savings of more than $500 a month on interest repayments on the average home loan since you’ve been Treasurer, you’ve cut the debt from $95 billion to $27 billion, you’ve taken the average inflation rate from about five and a bit per cent to two and a bit, you’ve have taken the average interest rate, average, from 12.7 per cent to 7…
I don’t know if his question went on any longer - this was all that was posted on the website for the Australian watchdog program Media Watch (and the audio clip abruptly ends there too).
Answering the question while asking the question is one of my pet peeves with interviewers. In effect what they’re doing is setting up what they think the guest would have answered and then looking for a simple ‘yes’ in response.
I’ve often pondered what the motivation is for these types of questions: is the interviewer trying to show how much they know or do they think they’re helping the guest by making sure the answer gets stated clearly or do they secretly want to be “on the other side of the mike”?
A few months ago, on The Big Idea, Donny Deutsch was talking with Donald Trump and Deutsch asked a question about what it feels like to be a parent (sadly I didn’t have my recorder with me and I haven’t found the transcript on line). He began the question by openly saying something like ‘you probably feel this way too’ and then proceeded to describe in great detail those feelings, finally ending with ‘is that what it’s like for you?’ I got the impression that Deutsch was very excited by parenthood and hoped Donald Trump felt the same way.
Even in a regular conversation, I think this kind of question makes the other person feel like they’re just there to confirm what the questioner says - that they’re not really part of the conversation; it has no place in a media interview.
Anyone have some good examples of this kind of question they could share?
Posted: January 30th, 2007 under Asking Questions.