Bad Interviewers

[MartinEnigmatica]

We all know them. These are the people who ask the most painful and obvious questions you'd just rather not be around to hear, or do so in such a commanding way like they're on stage or something. They're known to pass the recorder from their own mouth directly in front of the coaches and athletes. My question for you all is, can you even stand to be around them? I, for one, cannot. If I have the time, I'll wait to take my own shot.

 

[Write-brained]

We all know them. These are the people who ask the most painful and obvious questions you'd just rather not be around to hear, or do so in such a commanding way like they're on stage or something. They're known to pass the recorder from their own mouth directly in front of the coaches and athletes. My question for you all is, can you even stand to be around them? I, for one, cannot. If I have the time, I'll wait to take my own shot.

Also Known As: 99 percent of TV journalists ...

 

[outofplace]

We all know them. These are the people who ask the most painful and obvious questions you'd just rather not be around to hear, or do so in such a commanding way like they're on stage or something. They're known to pass the recorder from their own mouth directly in front of the coaches and athletes. My question for you all is, can you even stand to be around them? I, for one, cannot. If I have the time, I'll wait to take my own shot.

Hmmm...somebody here likes himself a whole bunch.

 

[Flying Headbutt]

With all the abuse for being arrogant and out of touch that the media gets from the public these days, thank goodness there's electronic media still out there so print guys can feel better about themselves.

 

[Write-brained]

With all the abuse for being arrogant and out of touch that the media gets from the public these days, thank goodness there's electronic media still out there so print guys can feel better about themselves.

Exactly ... "At least I'm not as bad as THOSE guys"

 

[Flying Headbutt]

It's not a lie if you believe it.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Well, everybody has their style.

Some interviewers may seem bad to us, but if they get the quotes they need, then it works for them.

 

[Ellis Redding]

I figured this would be about those sad sacks who come in for a job interview with the personality and enthusiasm of a dishrag.

 

[Riddick]

Well, everybody has their style.

Some interviewers may seem bad to us, but if they get the quotes they need, then it works for them.

yeah, but what works doesn't always seem exactly ethical to me. I've been around guys who basically give the whole "you did this, you did that, you dominated in this way," schtick, and then follow it up with "tell me about that."
just seems lazy to me. ask of ****in question instead of spoon-fead them the answer you want.

 

[MartinEnigmatica]

We all know them. These are the people who ask the most painful and obvious questions you'd just rather not be around to hear, or do so in such a commanding way like they're on stage or something. They're known to pass the recorder from their own mouth directly in front of the coaches and athletes. My question for you all is, can you even stand to be around them? I, for one, cannot. If I have the time, I'll wait to take my own shot.

Hmmm...somebody here likes himself a whole bunch.

Actually, I'm not too big a fan of myself...I dunno. Maybe I'm just a little burnt right now. It's 1 a.m., I'm wide awake after a killer multi-day assignment, and I think I just saw some scantily clad lassies traipse through the hotel lobby. But I could just be hallucinating.

 

[ColbertNation]

Also Known As: 99 percent of TV journalists ...

I think that's part of the problem. From my experience, there is little being done in J-schools on how to interview, so a lot of these kids come out and conduct interviews like they see on TV, which leads to very poor quality work. If you were to try to insert stuff from most TV interviews into a print story, you wouldn't get very far. The same thing happens, then, when you try to work a TV-style interview into print.

 

[buckweaver]

From my experience, there is little being done in J-schools on how to interview, so a lot of these kids come out and conduct interviews like they see on TV, which leads to very poor quality work.

Bingo.

The best questions are never written down on your notepad before you start an interview. They are the ones that come as a result of listening and immediately evaluating what an interviewee has said, and then following up on that. And once you develop that skill, you still need great preparation to be ready to use that skill.

 

[Ellis Redding]

Not available for comment.

 

[ColbertNation]

Harsh, but true.

 

[ADifferentOkie]

Well, everybody has their style.

Some interviewers may seem bad to us, but if they get the quotes they need, then it works for them.

yeah, but what works doesn't always seem exactly ethical to me. I've been around guys who basically give the whole "you did this, you did that, you dominated in this way," schtick, and then follow it up with "tell me about that."
just seems lazy to me. ask of ****in question instead of spoon-fead them the answer you want.

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.

 

[ballscribe]

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.

 

[skippy05]

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 ****" 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...

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

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 ****, all you ask for is generic ****.

 

[BigRed]

We all know them. These are the people who ask the most painful and obvious questions you'd just rather not be around to hear, or do so in such a commanding way like they're on stage or something. They're known to pass the recorder from their own mouth directly in front of the coaches and athletes. My question for you all is, can you even stand to be around them? I, for one, cannot. If I have the time, I'll wait to take my own shot.

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.

 

[skippy05]

We all know them. These are the people who ask the most painful and obvious questions you'd just rather not be around to hear, or do so in such a commanding way like they're on stage or something. They're known to pass the recorder from their own mouth directly in front of the coaches and athletes. My question for you all is, can you even stand to be around them? I, for one, cannot. If I have the time, I'll wait to take my own shot.

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.