Asking Questions
President Joe Biden gave interviews to a select number of large urban radio stations last week. Apparently in order to get the interview, the host had to agree to what questions would be asked; from a list of 8 approved questions provided by the campaign, for example, the host got to pick 4. That’s a pretty clear violation of ethical standards, and one host lost her job as a result of it.
Here’s how things normally work here regarding elected officials. We try to have them on the air on a regular basis, usually monthly. I will ask the media aide for the official if there are topics they are currently working on; often, the aide asks me what basic topics I want to cover, to make sure the individual is properly briefed. However, in no case is a list of questions dictated or approved in advance, and I have full authority to ask anything I want. Sometimes I ask about the things on the provided list, often I don’t. We also try to weave in questions from you, the audience.
It’s the job of the media aide or the campaign to make their person appear in a favorable light; it’s our job to be the bridge between you and them and ask the questions you want to have asked. An interview with prescribed questions or a scripted format is not worth doing, in our view.
Last year, the aide for one Iowa official asked if the official could come on to talk about a presidential candidate endorsement the official had made. Since we did not do interviews with campaign surrogates, I said no. I’d be happy to talk with the official about a variety of topics, and since the endorsement was sort of big news at the time, a small part of the interview might be on that…but just to come on to shill for their candidate was not going to happen. The Iowa official’s media aide agreed, we did an extended live interview, and while the endorsement was discussed briefly at the end, it was after several other topics of broad interest.
When Donald Trump was on the program the day of the Iowa Caucuses, there were no ground rules about questions I could ask. There’s never any discussion with Sen. Charles Grassley’s people about topics, either; we recorded this month’s conversation with him yesterday and his team had no idea of what I was going to ask because I frankly didn’t make any notes about it until a few minutes before the phone call.
As many media folks have pointed out in the last few days, it’s quite alright to pass up an interview opportunity when the questions, and therefore answers, are rigged…even if the interviewee is the President. We here agree.
