The decline of news interviewing

As much as I’m annoyed by the double-talking, deflecting, lying politicians, the interviewers aren’t doing much better.

This morning, I watched parts of both NBC’s Meet the Press and CBS’s Face the Nation, and they both share the same problem.

On Meet the Press, the host/interviewer was talking with Senator J.D. Vance. She asked him, if he had been vice president on January 6, 2021, would he have voted to certify the election, or done what Donald Trump wanted. Each time, he deflected, noting that “it’s you who wants to keep talking about that election. We’re focused on the present and the future, and in the present, we have the massive border crisis,” and the drug crisis, and whatever else usually comes at the end of that litany. A perfect opening to ask “Okay, so as a member of the Senate, what are you doing to address that border crisis, and drug crisis, and all the rest?” But she just let the pitch go by, and went back to “But you might be on Trump’s list for vice president in the next campaign. What would you have done in 2021?”

On Face the Nation, the interviewer was talking with Speaker Mike Johnson. After four rounds of “President Biden doesn’t need any legislation to fix the border crisis,” without a return question of “then what do we need the Congress for?”, she showed several clips from Johnson in 2019 saying “an impeachment should not be a one-party action.” A great intro for the House’s current impeachment activity against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. “So why are you moving this impeachment now?” to which he responded, “Mayorkas has broken the laws. We’ve got three committees investigating,” etc. But there was no return question of “you’re going through all the motions, as the Democrats did before you, but it still looks to be a one-party activity.” Or the even easier question: “You say he’s broken the laws. Which laws?” As most interviewers these days do, she ended with “We hope to have you back, because there are so many more things to talk about.” Completely missing the irony of the fact that each question-and-response was repeated four times, so of course they couldn’t get to too many issues.

Mind you, I didn’t watch the entirety of either program, but I did also see that each also had National Security Council Spokesman Jake Sullivan. Meet the Press asked him if, in the ongoing response to the death of the three US soldiers in Jordan, we could expect attacks in Iran itself. He said “I’m not going to comment on our activities and plans on television.” The interviewer’s response to that? “So you’re not ruling it out?” And he responded, “I’m not going to talk about it on television.” Five times they went through that back-and-forth.

Yes, I understand that repeating a question can sometimes get the interviewee to break down, get angry, and snap out an unintended answer. But come on, people, listen to the responses you’re getting. You can follow them to even more interesting questions and non-answers. I’m disappointed in you.

#news #reporting #government