III.

The Interview

Interviews became important. Broadly, they have two aims: to elicit facts and to seek comments—functions that often merge. Interviews for facts are prominent when newsworthy events have just occurred. Viewers and listeners hear police officers, for example, giving facts about newly committed crimes, or rescuers describing what has happened in accidents and disasters. Interviews for comments involve experts, public figures, and other people in the news. Their purpose is sometimes to explain the significance of events. With public figures fixing public policy, the purpose is to press them to justify their decisions. In early broadcasting, such interviews were usually deferential. Interviewers showed well-mannered respect for people in public office. Now, they are as likely to interrogate interviewees. This has caused politicians in democracies to complain that television and radio have supplanted parliament as the forum of national debate: “trial by media”, they say. In turn, broadcasters argue that experience and concern for public image make politicians evasive. In the United States, the sound bite—a cogent, very short comment, used repeatedly in news programmes—is held to have ousted thoughtful exposition, although public figures do explain themselves at length on prime time talk shows. National culture also influences interviewing style. Interviewing style can vary between nations, perhaps showing the influence of prevailing cultural trends.