When Mike Wallace had a piece on 60 Minutes, you knew there was going to be a confrontation, that some guy caught with his hand in the cookie jar was gonna squirm, and that Wallace would turn into a pit bull who wouldn't let go until he got the answers he wanted. If they'd sent him to Guantanamo, all the real terrorists would have cracked by now.
These days reporters ask questions, get an answer, and pretty much say, "Okay."
The softballs being lobbed by reporters, even on the networks, is troubling. When you've got someone on the ropes, you go for the knockout. You don't back off and let the guy take a breath.
Whether it's a politician or someone like A-Rod or Michael Phelps, it seems like the follow up question has become a lost art.
I can see Mike Wallace grilling A-Rod. "Why should anyone believe you?" he might have asked. Or, "Do you honestly expect anyone to believe you stopped doing steroids?" Or, "You're only coming clean because you got caught. You would have carried this lie all the way to Cooperstown, right?"
Or to Phelps. "Kellogg's has already dropped you. Why should anyone buy a product you've endorsed?"
Or to a politician. "You can't account for last year's bailout money. Why should the public trust you now?"
Sometimes I think young reporters are afraid of offending an interview subject. You know what? They need to be afraid of you. If someone you're interviewing gets up and leaves, that's a great piece of video. If someone gets flustered and begins to twitch, you're doing your job.
Your job is not to make friends in this business, but to expose the truth. If you ruffle feathers along the way, well, you're supposed to. Politicians, believe it or not, actually respect tough reporters more than ones they can manipulate. They may fear them and run the other way, but that makes for good video. Someone dodging a question is better than getting an answer to a softball question.
Put the softballs away. Journalism is hardball. Pitch inside, high and tight. Fastballs with an occasional curve thrown in. But if you continue to lob easy questions over the fat part of the plate, your interviews will have an easy time knocking them out of the park.
1 comment:
Sometimes I think young reporters are afraid of offending an interview subject. You know what? They need to be afraid of you. If someone you're interviewing gets up and leaves, that's a great piece of video. If someone gets flustered and begins to twitch, you're doing your job.
I agree with you 10000%. An interview, especially in light of a controversial issue, should never be treated as an afternoon tea. Though unfortunately, in many small markets where relationships with businesses and politicians are quite cozy, reporters playing "hardball" is frowned upon. Anything that might offend a friend of the GM or hurt potential future ad revenue is not a news story as far as they're concerned. I know this all too well.
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