Bad Interviewers

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Harsh, but true.

 

I completely agree with this. What drives me nuts is listening to the tape later and about 90 percent of the audio is one certain journalist analyzing the game and then stopping, waiting for the coach to agree. Or interrupting the coach/players and saying, "But my point is..."
No body freaking cares what you thought about the game. Ask a question and let them answer. Do it quickly and then get the hell out of the way so the rest of us can ask about that game-winning shot or the decision to use a box-and-one, jackass.

 

Typically, if the coach doesn't agree with their vision of what happened (and only the really good interview subjects will bother to take the time they know it'll take to actually go to the trouble of disabusing said blowhard of his erroneous notion) they won't use the quote anyway.

Because they've already basically written the story, and need the corresponding quote to fit it.

The coaches are damned if they do, damned if they don't. They can just parrot the guy's question back to him, knowing that's what he wants, and knowing that's what's going to take the least amount of time and they can get the hell out of there.

Or they can go into a detailed, insightful explanation of what REALLY happened, what they were thinking, why it did or didn't work. And the guy's pen will stop scribbling and he'll look off into the distance.

No-win situation.

 

What really sucks is being a radio guy doing a gangbang and the print guy keeps interupting, trying to get the subject to basically say what he wants him to say. As a person who does both, I go out of my way to try to keep my trap shut during the answer. Most reporters I've worked with are pretty good about allowing at least one followup after a question. One of the funniest interviews I've seen was a couple weeks ago in California. I was covering the NASCAR race and Jeff Gordon was doing his hauler interviews. First of all, me and a TV guy from FOX get there and one of the local TV cameramen had set up his camera about 20 feet from the back of the hauler and informed us we needed to get out of his shot because he needed to set up for Gordon. Even funnier was the "talent," who looked all of 12 and was clutching a Jeff Gordon "NASCAR Slut" Barbie. Everyone got their questions in and this kid starts asking Gordon about the doll. Not stuff like "Jeff, do you think Mattel putting out a Jeff Gordon Barbie shows how far-reaching NASCAR has become?" or something like that. It was "What do you think of the doll?" Jeff gave an answer and the guy says (I swear this is true), "It's pretty cool, huh?" Jeff tries to answer again and the kid keeps at him saying, "Do you like the doll?" Finally Jeff says, "Dude, do you work for Mattel or soemthing?" Good times...

 

I'll say this in somewhat of a defense of TV: they can't ask the same questions we do. It's nothing for us to take three paragraphs to set up the proper context for a really thoughtful quote. You don't get that in your average sportscast. You [imight get three sentences, so you need a fairly generic quote that you can drop in at any point. And when all you need is generic shit, all you ask for is generic shit.

 

I can deal with those TV types you speak of.
There's this radio guy/blowhard that shows up on my beat sometimes who really gets me.
He asks his question, pushes his mic/tape recorder thingie towards the athlete/coach, and that's OK.
But he also pushes it towards other reporters' mouths when they ask their questions, I assume so he can get YOUR question and the answer on the air. Really annoying and off-putting. Every time I does it I instinctively want to smack that thing away from my face.

 

I've dealt with a couple of reporters, radio people, who will interject a "yeah" or "really" or something to that effect in almost every question just do when people hear the cut, the listener will hear those reporters' voices. I've also seen a print guy who will "accidentally" tap his recorder against radio mics in an effort to ruin their sound. I've noticed people like this are usually on their way up the ladder or down the ladder.

The absolute worst was when Alex Barron of the Rams did his first post-practice locker room interview. Unfortunately, the dude will NOT speak. He's painfully shy. So in one of those cool moments, Rams' TE Roland Williams grabs one of the TV guy's mics and starts conducting the interview. It was funny AND Barron started talking. Problem was, one of the guys on their way down the ladder started cutting Williams off to ask his own questions. What could have been a great bit for a lot of broadcasters was ruined because this assclown just HAD to have his voice in the mix. I love the NFL, but hated covering it primarily for that reason. Even if it was only ONE bad reporter, it could ruin everything. That's why I stick to prep sports and NASCAR...there's a little more respect for one another since everyone pretty much sees each other all the time.

 

NFL's the worst for self-important press box part-timers.

 

Along the lines of skippy's thoughts: I can't stand when someone interrupts/takes over a gang-bang interview in which we only have a small amount of time, so he/she can get his own stuff that the rest could not possibly use. I just think it's appropriate to treat these interviews much differently than a one-on-one, and act like a professional.

Last year, I was at an event where everyone was looking for a certain athlete even as his teammates walked by. I chased him down after he slipped by the press and fans, and was quickly joined by other reporters. No problem; we all should respect each other enough for me to not get pissy when you join in after you see me talking to a dude in the middle of a field.

But when we're spending the early questions all consciously trying to ask certain things that have to do with this guy and his team (things that show our awareness that we're not doing a one-on-one), then someone starts in with all these specifics about the dude's former teammate, because he's doing a feature on him. Asks six consecutive questions, before the fifth of which the PR guy says "okay, last question."

Ugh. Great, guess we're all doing that feature now.

 

I used to be able to get great stuff with Steven Jackson of the Rams solely because of how they would set up the locker room interviews during the week. They would always have Torry Holt before Jackson and Holt is a quote machine (After a win, he once stood there for about a minute before yelling out, "Hey, does anyone want to interview ME?"). While the scrum is surrounding Holt, Jackson would slip in. I would sneak away and usually get at least a two-minute one-on-one before everyone else saw him.