Many Reporters do Work in Just This Way, Including Me

The Phrasing of Questions Matters

I pulled the block quote below from a post on the Daily Kos blog. Background is that, based on polling, three separate news stories suggested three different, even contradictory, public responses to the proposed Wall St. bailout package, the price tag for which was given as $700 billion. Dig down into the questions from the pollsters and you find how the phrasing of the basic question drives the answers. The lesson for us, I suppose, is that you can ask questions several different ways to tease out attitudes.

From the blog post

The Times/Bloomberg Poll  asked respondents if they believed it was "the government's responsibility to bail out private companies with taxpayers' dollars." A majority said no.

The Pew Poll, by contrast, asked respondents if "investing billions to try and keep financial institutions and markets secure" was the right thing to do. A majority said yes.

ABC/WaPo  (Q 16.): Do you approve or disapprove of the steps the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department have taken to try to deal with the current situation involving the stock market and major financial institutions? Do you approve/disapprove strongly or somewhat?

To summarize:

Do you think it's good to stave off economic collapse? Well, sure!

But do you think those dirty rotten scoundrels should be rescued with your money? Hell, no!

And as for the specific steps? Well, maybe.

Sailing Analogies for Interviewing Techniques

Who are you as an interviewer?

The wind I face represents my natural disposition as an interviewer, in this case timidity. To get the information I want, I need to interview more aggressively. That is, I "sail" into the wind, forcing myself to be as direct as possible - which is never going to be straight ahead.

 

 The wind behind me represents my natural disposition as an interviewer, in this case combative assertiveness. To get the information I want, sometimes I need to interview less aggressively. That is, I "sail" with the wind - without piling on too much sail. Sometimes one needs to slow down.

 


Or just jump in the water and go for it, clumsily but persistently. Dog paddlers can get there, too.





(But be careful about trying to persuade through analogy as I have just done.)

Reporting Class Practices Interviewing a Cooperative Passerby

Good job, class. You did ask Pat how much he made and by throwing out a high but still plausible figure -- I believe you suggested 100K -- he did answer the question. But since Patrick was doing this as an act of friendship, I cut his answer from the video.

If this had been a real interview, I certainly would have included his answer. Already we see a problem you will face as a student journalist. Your sources may think you are playing at being a journalist and that you won't use what they tell you. You need to make clear upfront that our assignments are not just class exercises and could find their way into print or online.

But even if you do that, since you are seen as a peer or even a friend, your sources may come to you after an interview and ask that some comment not be used. And when that happens, you will have an ethical problem, and we will have a nice class discussion.

By the way, it took me about 50 minutes to edit this little slice of life into rough shape. To get something more than blogworthy would have taken more interviewing time and more editing time -- and before I began I would have been better off consulting with someone who knows how to do this kind of thing right.

But even rough product is better than no product at all.