If it was my child I wouldn’t allow it any other way.

As a print journalist, I do this to limited, and varying degrees. In some cases I absolutely do not want questions to be anticipated (and thus possibly be prepared for, say if I'm trying to determine a political or other motive or an immediate, unfiltered, honest reaction). In other cases I absolutely do want answers carefully considered (if it's a technical-type question or otherwise requires thought or the answer is improved with intelligence).

If for any reason a source insists on questions beforehand, to prepare, and my spidey-sense tells me it's a bad idea, I'll respond tactically. If I really need an honest answer, I might possibly pre-ask some questions but not all, and then ask the gotcha questions more spontaneously. 

One could possibly even feed a question designed to have a source think you're going down a road other than the one you actually plan to travel. I'm not 100% comfortable with the deception game because (1) it's not honest, (2) it can backfire, and (3) the circumstances would need to be exceptional and truly warrant that.

It's a dance. And it depends on situation and context. It also might vary if it's for print, radio or TV.
 

Last edited by Saul (February 23, 2018 12:54 pm)

splunge wrote:

CNN is being accused of providing questions to the Florida shooter kids and they prepared scripted questions.  I don't know if that's true.

I'm curious, splunge. What's your source for those accusations.

splunge wrote:

However, yesterday, I watched CBC News Channel interview a Florida student, who very clearly read out the previously written responses to every question the CBC anchor asked.  The Skype or whatever link clearly showed the student reading from notes. 

Most folks know ahead of time that they're going to be asked questions, consider what may be coming and how they'll reply.
If you watch the daily WH press briefing, you'll notice Sarah Huckabee Sanders or Raj Shaw leafing through a prepared binder when certain questions are being posed, questions they've already guessed they'll have to answer.

Not to say some people don't know the questions in advance but the kids I've watched have obviously given their situation a lot of thought. Most of them appear to be dealing off the tops of their heads. Pretty savvy bunch.
 

Last edited by mike marshall (February 23, 2018 5:05 pm)

splunge wrote:

The CNN reference refers to the town hall where it is alleged - and denied by the outlet - that CNN attempted to feed questions to the kids for the live debate.  The source is (ugh) Fox News, as apparently told to them via tweet from one of the kids.

As for the CBC interview, the comparison between that and WH press briefings is not quite on point.  One expects scripted answers from Sanders, since she is de facto speaking for the president.  A CBC live interview typically attempts to seek out spontaneous reaction from the individual, more than lines that are read out.  (perhaps written by someone else.  Not saying that was the case in this instance.)

Regardless, my original post was an observation, followed by a genuine question.  It was in no way intended to be a criticism of the Florida interviewee or her responses.

What you have to consider is the source and how much weight it deserves. That's why I asked. Fox, to me, is not credible. Fox is the Devin Nunes of media.

The WH example was just that, not an apples/oranges comparison.

Also, criticism was not something that came to mind.
 

Retaw wrote:

With celebrities you almost always have the questions go through their publicist before the TV taping. For random civilians? Not particularly common.

Indeed, it seems to depend on whether it's news or entertainment. Check this out from an article on Radio Ink about the prep that goes on every day for Jimmy Kimmel Live: 

"One of the show’s producers will contact a guest a few weeks before the broadcast date and ask the guest what topics they would like to discuss in their segment. The producer reviews the list of topics with Kimmel, then calls the guest back with Kimmel’s list of questions so they can prepare. In many cases, the first time the guest meets Kimmel in person is a few minutes before the recording begins, just to make sure they are still on the same page.

"This highly orchestrated procedure creates what appears to the audience as a spontaneous, unscripted conversation. The guest is relaxed because they had time time to prepare, and maybe even come up with some witty answers. Kimmel is happy because his team has the most entertaining content in Kimmel’s time slot."

By the way, the rest of the article is about how great voice tracking is. Not sure I agree with that conclusion. 

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