Interviews: Questioning the question
Media Matters criticized a question Wolf Blitzer asked about Hillary Clinton and now it is getting criticized, in turn, by Newsday’s political blogger and Politico’s blogging boss, who argue that it’s wrong to question Blitzer’s question — a continuation of the debate lately on the state of the interview. I’m siding with Media Matters on this. They said:
On the May 14 edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer asked whether former President Bill Clinton’s recent campaign advertisement on behalf of his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY), is “the act of a supportive husband or a sign the Clinton campaign is feeling desperate.” Blitzer offered no basis for his suggestion that the Clinton campaign may be “feeling desperate” and did not mention a recent Newsweek poll that shows Sen. Clinton ahead of all the other leading presidential candidates in head-to-head races (though within the margin-of-error in some matchups).
Then Glenn Thrush of Newsday and Ben Smith of Politico went after Media Matters defending journalists’ right, even responsibility, to ask loaded questions. They completely miss the point. Blitzer’s question communicated information that was not backed up: that the Clinton campaign is “feeling desperate.” Who says? please. Let’s see some figures, let’s hear some quotes. Without them, this is Blitzer doing nothing more than issuing a casual, undocumented opinion: a sheep in Wolf’s query.
But Thrush and Smith seem to think that statements followed by a question mark are fair game. Says Thursh:
Question 1: How does a reporter decide what’s fair and factual without asking questions whose premises are, from time to time, unfair and unfactual?Question 2: Who gets to judge whether a question is based on “discernible fact” or “loaded”? [Media Matters founder] Brock?
Question 3: What on God’s green earth is a discernible fact anyway?
Question 4: Don’t we get paid to ask loaded questions? (Like, say, “What happened to the rest of that tape, Mr. Nixon?”)
It’s only natural that politicians and their surrogates want to limit, restrict or shape reporters’ questions. And it’s only natural that reporters think the public would be a whole better served if they focused on providing answers instead.
I’d say we have the right to question the journalist, in turn: Mr. Blitzer, how do you know that the campaign is “desperate.” Who said so? On what basis do you say that now? And we are right to question the practice of throwing out undocumented facts as part of a question: the question is thus not a question but a statement.
Thrush and Smith think that the journalist remains in charge of the interview. No. Welcome to the two-way world. Media Matters’ questioning of Blitzer is quite justified. He’s not the only one to ask questions anymore.
But, of course, what’s really being challenged here is horse-race coverage. Blitzer decided all on his lonesome that Clinton’s campaign is lagging and that’s just as well-documented and reported as all reporters’ calls of the race. It’s empty. And it’s time to call them on it.
Tags: interview, journalism
May 24th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I have to disagree here, friend. Wolf Blitzer did what we all do, insinuate something without needing any “proof” backing up our speculation.
If some Americans feel, or if just Wolf Blitzer personally feels, that the Billory campaign looks panic-stricken, clueless, or “desperate”, why not pose the smart ass question?
I loathe all politicians, the lobbyist loving liars.
I must say, though, that John Edwards deserves credit for suddenly Twittering frequently, and with solid content, eg anti-war and anti oil dependency statement links.
Also, Billory did a nice thing with her “Vote for my campaign theme song” web effort. I didn’t care for any of the pre-selects, so I wrote in my own suggestion: “Too Dead for Me” by Atari Teenage Riot.
“Is your campaign acting desperate?”
Why do impressions and misgivings suddenly now need to be rationalized by a logocentric society, be buffered orr buttressed by belief in facts that rally to support the hunch?
A good reply would be to say, “Desperate? When you’re at the top, you don’t need to be desperate about anything” or similar.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Wolf did not imply any falsification of the campaigns.
A leader can suddenly get worried and act and look “desperate”, like when others are gaining on you, or you run out of steam and start delivering stilted, overly-coached repetitions of canned rhetoric.
For Billary to lean on Mr. Bill, it does look opportunistic, insecure, co-dependent, and unleaderly.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Oh, Lord. We sure have come a long way since Thomas Jefferson’s 2nd inaugural address, when he declared his gratitude for the “artillery of the press” for attacking him relentlessly during his campaign. He believed it helped the public get to the truth, and that it was the best and only way to get to the truth. Perhaps we are becoming a nation of sissies, but if so, does the Press have to encourage us?
May 24th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Jeff,
The reason he asked that question is probably because Hillary’s poll numbers have been stagnant and in some cases dropping, while Obama and Gore(!) are making strides. Edwards is holding steady at 10%, I think Edwards has peaked, he won’t be a factor. But he will be a great veep candidate.
First, Hill’s campaign said that Bill would stay on the sideline, as this is her campaign, and then at the first sign of trouble (or whenever she needs a cash influx) she calls on Bill to rally the base.
She should just wear a t-shirt that says “My husband is Bill Clinton, vote for me”.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Heres a desperate move.
Schedule a Rose Garden press conference to pre-empt ABC’s The View interview with William Rodriquez, WTC keyman that unlocked stairwells on that fateful day.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:46 am
I don’t care why Wolf thought the Billary campaign seemed “desperate”. All politicians are desperate and increasingly irrelevant as we move toward Open Source Government and a true Of the People society, thanks to the web, blogs, wikis, twitter, jaiku, etc.
twitter.com/vaspers
May 24th, 2007 at 10:50 am
I couldn’t agree more, Jeff. Television reporters are viewed by the public as experts, and a statement couched within a question carries some weight.
In print, the reporter just reports the story, to be read by the reader and left to their inferences. In TV, the two-way exchanges between the anchor and the reporter — which, ironically, given your post, involves the reporter answering questions (no matter how scripted) — make the reporter the expert and thus the opinion maker.
And, JB, if that information was out there, could not Blitzer have cited all of that? It only takes a moment, and lends so much more credibility to your reporting. Shows both your subject and your viewers that you’re well researched, rather than just assuming they’ll know you are.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:52 am
“Blitzer doing nothing more than issuing a casual, undocumented opinion”
I’m shocked. He’s been such a guardian of quality journalism up to this point.
/sarcasm
May 24th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Wolf did what so many “journalists” do these days, he set up a false dichotomy that suits his rhetorical purposes. The right answer is “neither”, which takes us to “Welcome to the two-way world. Media Matters’ questioning of Blitzer is quite justified.”
Yes, it is.
“Billary” haters notwithstanding.
BTW, Sen. Clinton may simply be doing what Al Gore didn’t have the sense to do. Align the campaign with a very popular former President. This is what pols commonly do.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
The question is fair. I’d expect this sort of warm and fuzzy ad to appear on election night eve, not at this early stage. It looks downright strange for Mr. Clinton to be opining that, even if he weren’t Mr. Clinton, he’d still be for Hillary. Who asked — so why are you answering?
It says something about the camp’s strategy which, on the surface, isn’t positive or benign. Absolutely fair game to be suspicious here especially since a) campaigns poll far more extensively than media outlets and with more granularity b) the Clintons probably poll as much as the best of them and c) no campaign takes out ads without a reason.
It’s too easy to get caught up in the propriety game. Clinton is not being accused of wrongdoing or of something unfeasible. And the underlying question, however some may think was inartfully posed, remains: what they heck was that all about?
May 24th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
But there’s a difference between suspicion and making an outright assertion, which is essentially what the question was.
Why not do what you suggested John: Just ask, “What the heck was up with that Bill Clinton ad?” What a concept: Let your sources be the opinion makers. Is Wolf getting run over by media critics if one of his sources says it’s a move of desperation? Nope.
Be a better journalist! Don’t be an opinion maker!
May 24th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I agree completely with your criticism here. Even if Clinton were polling dead last right now, its a little too early to describe her or any other campaign as “desperate.”
But moreover, I take issue with the seemingly nonsensical/fallacious “supportive husband vs. political desperation” dichotomy. In my mind, there is little relationship between Bill Clinton’s involvement in his wife’s campaign and the level of desperation the campaign may or may not feel… It seems amateurish to conjecture that such a relationship exists, particularly with all the analysis out there saying that Bill will be a conceptually integral part of Hillary’s campaign regardless of how the campaign “feels” about its chances.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Just another attempt on Wolf’s part to steal the Sam Donaldson mantle. Big Deal. Sure, he should be questioned on it. The moment he asks a question like that, he moves himself from an ‘exclusively journalist’ status into a shared status as ‘opinion maker.’ That puts HIM in the limelight, and as anybody in Shakespeare’s time knew, whoever’s in the lights is a fair target for an overripe tomato…
This isn’t about politics. It’s about UPSTAGING.
DEAL with it.
May 24th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Nuss:
“But there’s a difference between suspicion and making an outright assertion, which is essentially what the question was.”
Point taken. I guess I’m cranky and forgiving because the editor in me looks for the valid thrust and dislikes it when the conversation is changed to form over substance. But you are correct to point out that questions formulated like Blitzer’s are to blame for changing the conversation by being easy fodder for criticism. And I have no doubt the formulation is for teasey effect.
John Stewart did a hysterical piece a few months ago which pointed out that the cable guys think they can get away with any sentence that ends with a question mark. I think his tag line was, “Is your mother a whore? I’m just asking …”
May 25th, 2007 at 6:11 am
18 months to the Changing of the Guard … I hope.
Be vigilant and watchful. No escalation.
Have a nice and safe Memorial Day Weekend.
: - )
May 29th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
The Politico is really going according to form, I think.