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WaPo criticizes media's approach to political interviews [1]

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Date: 2024-09-03  

In a bit of a surprise today, the Washington Post ran an article critical of the media’s interviewing techniques that is worth a quick read-through.

I’ve written a few critiques myself and don’t necessarily agree with everything commentator Matt Bai says in it but the very fact that a major organ of the mainstream media (MSM) is asking these questions about why the media is falling short is quite nearly remarkable. For example Bai writes that:

To me, though, that [CNN Kamala Harris] interview was a pretty great example of why conversations between journalists and candidates so often fail to reveal anything of substance. And the failure is mostly on our side. If we journalists are actually interested in revealing things about our candidates that enlighten voters and ennoble the process, then it’s time to completely rethink the questions we ask.

Bai goes on to describe an “institutional interview” technique involving gotcha questions and politicians trying to dodge controversy and avoid making any statements that will come back as attack ads from the opposition. The media treats this as an “exclusive” news scoop and has a formulated list of questions and a search for some moment that can translate into a headline.

One alternative he prefers would be a “profile interview,” in which a reporter spends an extended period of time going over various topics, pursuing some topics into a deep dive and then editing it down into a report that gives a broader breadth of their subject.

And you arrive at the story you’re trying to tell not by convening a committee of reporters and editors to pore over a candidate’s past statements, but by stepping back at the outset and asking yourself the most fundamental journalistic question there is. What do we actually not know about this person that we’d like to know? What am I genuinely curious to learn?

Bai mentions one such an interview that he did with Democratic candidate John Kerry in 2004 and noted that,

Kerry ended up regretting our interviews after Republicans took a fairly innocuous statement he made about terrorism and turned it into a TV ad.

So not great there, either. The main point is that the media needs to rethink its approach, and I think it’s a good thing that a MSM pundit is acknowledging this much.

Some of his other complaints seemed odd. He said we didn’t learn anything other than that she would consider adding a Republican to her cabinet. I disagreed with that. In the CNN interview, Harris said that family “kitchen-table” issues would be her primary focus (not a first-day checkoff). She said she switched her position on fracking because she has come to the conclusion that we can transition to renewable energy with out banning it (the implication being that economics will do the job), she took a strong position in support of Ukraine, she called for a cease-fire in Palestine and answered questions candidly.

Right now the MSM seems to be in a position where it can’t seem to do a decent interview and doesn’t seem to grasp substantive answers when it hears them. IMHO, while Bai is right that the media needs to do some soul-searching, the problem is equally that it does such a poor and biased way of covering the material that its reporters round up.

In any case, the question of how badly the MSM is covering election 2024 is a story worthy of much attention and discussion. Thank you , Mr. Bai, for opening the door to this important issue.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/3/2267645/-WaPo-criticizes-media-s-approach-to-political-interviews?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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