Proposed Interview with Senator Obama

I just completed mediabistro's Interviewing Skills course last night. The last assignment was to think up a difficult question for an interviewee and write out multiple follow up questions to get a better answer. Just for the heck of it I decided to draw up an interview with Senator Barack Obama about the treatment of Senator Clinton during the primary. Here are my questions:

1) Senator Obama, during your primary contest with Senator Clinton many women from both camps raised objections to the way that members of the media covered Senator Clinton. Some of these women cited particular pundits, and others expressed concern with what they saw as a sexist bias in the coverage overall. Here are some of the clips that women have indicated as examples of this bias. [Play Hardball, other clips]

What do you think about these? Do you think that ____(names of pundits in clips)_____ treated Senator Clinton fairly?

Follow up questions:

• Here are some clips of those same pundits talking about you. [Play clips.] Do you think you were given the same treatment as Senator Clinton? Why or why not?
• Do you think sexism had anything to do with the way she was treated?
• [If thinks treatment was same/fair] What would you say, then, to the women who were offended and upset with the coverage?
• [If thinks treatment was not same/fair] Why do you think these pundits reacted the way they did to her?
• Do you think the media’s treatment of Senator Clinton was fair overall?
• [If no] Why do you think this happened? What do you think prompted the unfair coverage?

2) Should anything be done to ensure that the media treats female candidates fairly?

• [If so] What could be done, and who should do it? (The government, individual politicians, the people of this country, the courts, a combination, or some other avenue?) Do you think this could be addressed with education, viewers and others expressing their outrage, regulation, or by some other means?
• [If thinks nothing should be done] I know you’ve recently stated that you oppose the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine. Is that why you’re hands off here, or are there other reasons?

3) Do you think this country would benefit from having more women in office?

• Why do you think there are so few women currently elected to national political office in the U.S.?
• As president and leader of your party, what would you do to get more women elected to national political office?

4) In your famous Philadelphia speech, you addressed the state of race in this country right now. What do you think about the state of gender equality?

5) Some women have expressed concerns that the combination of the media’s treatment of Senator Clinton, the lack of outcry from elected Democrats over this treatment, and the fact that this treatment continued even after many women protested indicates that many prominent people think that a woman, any woman, is unfit to be president because of her gender. What do you think about that?

6) Can you name any women now who you think have the potential to be a good president? What about in 8 years, do you see any up-and-comers?

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Rationale:

The end of Senator Clinton’s campaign left many women bitter and upset, not just that she lost, but that she was treated disrespectfully by the media because of her gender. Many women have expressed concerns that Senator Obama turned a blind eye to blatant displays of sexism against Senator Clinton, and that the Democratic party similarly did not stand up for her. Due to this lack of response, these women wonder whether Senator Obama and the Democrats will fight for their interests, or whether they simply take their votes for granted and will leave these perceived injustices unaddressed. Some of Senator Obama’s actions, such as calling a reporter “sweetie” and patting his wife on the behind the night he declared victory, have compounded this problem for him.

Senators Obama and McCain are now both attempting to court the “female vote” by talking about how they would support what are viewed as women’s issues, but I have not yet seen either of them actually address the issue of how Senator Clinton was treated.

Asking the above questions of Senator Obama in a nationally broadcast interview would publicly air these concerns and give him an opportunity to lay them to rest. It would be a difficult interview for him because, if women perceive him dodging questions, belittling them, not answering the questions to their satisfaction, or answering incorrectly, he risks losing a substantial number of voters. He could also generate controversy if he agrees that various pundits treated Senator Clinton unfairly, and risk losing those pundits’ support in his fight against Senator McCain.

The interviewer would also need to work carefully because these same women feel that the media has given Senator Obama a pass. Allowing him to get away with not answering the questions completely, or even seeming to agree with him too easily, would risk invalidating the interview in their minds. On the other hand, if the interviewer presses too heavily, Senator Obama could refuse to go back on the network, stop answering questions, or retaliate in other ways.

It would be interesting to do a parallel interview on this same issue with Senator McCain, just to be fair, preferably before Senator Obama’s interview aired. Call it a double blind interview. Neither candidate would know what the other candidate said first, so neither would have the advantage. The network could flip a coin on air to decide which played first, and post both simultaneously online. Of course, who knows if either candidate would consent to that.

What do you think? If you could interview either candidate on a topic, what would it be?

Why I hate the nightly news

As a prospective journalist, is it bad that I don’t even have my television plugged in 99 percent of the time?

I’ve often wondered if I’m kind of a throwback because I’m not interested in watching TV, being on TV, writing for TV, or even producing broadcast-like content for websites. When I first considered journalism as a career, many of the media professionals I met seemed to confirm this impression. They seemed to believe that mixed-media journalists who could produce their own clips are the wave of the future, and print-only writers are on the fast track to extinction.

One reporter in particular passionately exhorted me to enroll in the Interactive Journalism program at American University. There, she told me, I would learn to report while armed with a digital video camera, a recorder, and a laptop at all times. A mobile journalist, or “mojo,” herself, she believed that the ability to stick a microphone in anyone’s face and aggressively go after the sound bite on camera would be a big factor in determining any young journalist's future success.

While I agree that a good quote or a good clip can make a story, this approach to interviewing -- for a sound bite -- turns me off.

First, I view interviews as a part of finding out a story, and I don't ever approach one thinking I know everything someone is going to say. If I try to get only the words I want to hear out of someone's mouth, I'm not really interviewing them; I'm interviewing my projection of them. While this may not have been exactly what the reporter I spoke with meant, it frightens me that the news other young journalists are being told to find is only the news that they expect to be there.

Second, the neater the news is, the more manufactured it seems to me, just as the more the person who’s telling me the news looks like a mannequin (male or female), the less likely I am to believe them. And if I don’t believe the news on TV, why would I expect someone else to swallow it just because I started writing it?

The more I've thought about it, the more this difference in viewpoints has become symbolic to me of why my television sits dark and silent in my living room.

But maybe there’s hope for people like me. According to this article, I’m far from alone in despising broadcast news.

If I’m not the only one who’d rather not touch the nightly news with a ten foot pole, it stands to reason that there are other people out there doing more interesting things with video journalism. It’s even possible that viewers fed up with the ratings-based coverage choices would be interested in watching them. Which could mean that, given the current status of the media world at large, maybe we’ll see some evolution soon.

Bottom line: the journalists I cited at the beginning of this post do have a point. Even if I'm no more interested in being the next Colbert than I am in being the next Couric, even if my approach to interviewing is not totally sound bite-centric, and even if my television stays unplugged, it would still be a good idea for me to learn how to use a camera. If I want to participate in whatever the media world is changing into, I should learn how to use the tools of the trade. After all, my problem is not really with those tools; it's with what news stations are currently doing with them. It's even possible that, by the time I'm ready, the media world might want the types of clips I'd be proud to create.

So... home video projects, anyone?