The Art of Live Political Interviews:
Rather Vs. Bush:

Volume VIII, Number 6     February 8, 1988

CBS News anchorman Dan Rather and his staff pushed for Vice President George Bush to participate in a live interview on the evening newscast. There have been differing versions about what the Bush team had been told the content would be. They have maintained it was supposed to be a generic profile interview.

But, Rather wanted to press Bush for frank answers about his possible involvement in the Iran-contra affair. Congress had banned the United States providing military aid to rebels fighting the Nicarauguan government. Key Reagan administration officials devised ways to get the rebels help. After Congress investigated, some criminal charges resulted, although neither Reagan or Bush was accused of illegal actions.

The vice president refused to acknowledge any role or knowledge about the matter.
Rather asked virtually the same question several times and interrupted .

Bush was well prepared and finally gave Rather a shot, referring to an embarrassing incident when the anchorman had left the news set upset and left dead air.

The interview was explosive. It was the topic of conversation across the country: Did Dan Rather go too far in his interview with Vice President Bush?

In talking with news executives, top anchors and several consultants, it was clear the Rather incident had all of us re-examining our craft.

Several important themes emerged in our conversations:

Journalists must ask tough questions. The public expects it. However, the First Amendment does not include the right to be rude. News Directors were re-evaluating when to use live political interviews in their shows.  Is a live interview needed, or could the public be better served by a carefully researched taped package? A study showed those offended by Rather's interview were most likely older people --- an important group of news viewers. Candidates were extremely well coached.  Broadcasters must be just as well prepared before an interview. They must know the subject thoroughly, and be polite, but persistent in their questioning.

Prime Anchor's View:
Five Keys to Better Interviews

In Philadelphia, KYW-TV anchor Steve Bell., former news anchor of ABC's "Good Morning America" said it was crucial for an anchor to be fair.
"The people who watch particular stations or anchors are putting a great deal of trust in them and their product," Bell said.

"It really is a privilege to be invited into the home as a member of  the family with special standing and status. You must have a tremendous amount of respect for this. Your credibility is all wrapped up in keeping the confidence of these people that you are a good person, striving your best to be fair and objective," he explained.

Bell said most people had crossed the line at some point in their careers. He recalled his interview with a Nobel prize winner who had some offensive theories claiming there was an hereditary inferiority of  African Americans.
At the time, the man was espousing the breeding of geniuses to produce geniuses for the future. He was a guest on "Good Morning America."

While Bell was in the control room, the interviewee read his notes which had been left on the GMA set.
"When I went down to join him, he looked at me with a sneer and said, 'I read your questions. They're typical!'   I was so mad,  I wanted to nail him. Besides, I felt this tremendous obligation not to let him get away with anything," he explained.
Bell felt later that he had made a big mistake in going so far.
"I was terrible. I was rude, abusive, and I jumped all over him. I may have been on the side of the angels, but he won," Bell said.

The anchorman received lots of letters after the incident --- letters from people who were expressing sorrow and disappointment in him. They didn't think much of the obnoxious Nobel winner, but they had always thought Bell was fair, and this was one time he wasn't.

Keeping that experience in mind, Bell offered suggestions for live interviews:

1. Be prepared.
"The bottom line is always know the subject matter so that if the interviewee tries to fudge, misrepresent, or avoid the issues, you're in a position to state a premise they will have to deal with, or else be visibly refusing to answer the question," said Bell.
He stressed the principal weapon against vulnerability is information, knowledge and understanding of the subject.
"However, there is a degree to which you simply can't win against someone who is extremely well-prepared and wants to avoid the issue, as Dan
proved," he added.

2. Control aggressive tendencies.
Bell warned, "There is a limit to how aggressive you can be.  Your audience holds you to a strict code of conduct and once you overstep those bounds, you lose. It doesn't matter how righteous your cause, because the audience is no longer paying attention to content and is upset with you."
He said by being too aggressive you undermine your own credibility and you fail to accomplish your objective.

3. Keep the interview on track.
After giving the interviewee a legitimate opportunity to answer the question, if the person is avoiding it and trying to turn off in other directions, Bell said you do have a right to say, "I'm sorry, but you're not addressing the question. I'd like to repeat it for you."
"If the prevarication continues, your right to interrupt increases --- not to the point of being combative or arrogant or rude, but to make it very clear that the person is not dealing with the subject," he said.
Remember, you can't force people to give the answer you want to hear.
Bell recalled when he covered the George Wallace campaign.
"There may have been two times during the whole campaign when I got him to say something he didn't want to say.  We had some very lively interviews. I could banter with him, as long as I kept an element of almost tongue-in-cheek involved," said the anchor.
"You have to try and feel the situation and what you can and cannot do without appearing as a bully," he warned.

4. Give candidates the respect the office deserves.
Bell believed we do owe a certain respect to a president,  vice president or any elected official.
"That doesn't mean you have to crawl.  A healthy adversarial relationship is essential. Not cynicism, but skepticism," he explained.

5. Be fair, but firm.
"There are times when you have to say and do things in interviews and stories which will antagonize your most loyal supporters, because that's the way it is. That's news," Bell said.
"No one wins all the time. But by and large, coming across as rude and arrogant
is self-defeating," he stressed.

For anchors and reporters who would be swamped with offers of live one-on-one interviews he had this advice:  "These are people who want to get their story out, so you don't have to feel awed. You're doing them a favor by providing them the air time in
the first place.  Identify the issues that are the most important to your audience,
master the subject matter, and ask straightforward questions."

News directors fear local spillover

News executives we talked with feared the negative feelings towards the media generated by the Rather incident could spill over to local broadcasters.

"In terms of whether it's going to hurt the media, I don't think it's going to help," said Steve Wasserman, Vice President News WPLG-TV, Miami.

"Every time something like this happens, it added fuel to the fire
for those people who already are predisposed to not like the media," he
said.

Wasserman felt that an important issue was obscured by the tone of the broadcast.
"It's unfortunate, because I really think what Rather was trying to get at was not only honorable, but was correct. He was trying to ask Bush tough questions. But, he did come off as being rude and over- stepping his bounds. It doesn't make anyone look good," he added.

Some viewers already were hostile to Rather specifically and the news media, in general. Activists had portrayed the press as elitist and out-of-touch with some of the public.
"I'm deeply concerned that the suspicion of the press that already exists will only be deepened by events of this week, where people think there is an arrogance and a pre-set agenda. It undermines confidence in the whole process," warned Phil Balboni, Vice President News WCVB-TV, Boston.

He cautioned, "The Fourth Estate has a great deal of power, but the power should be used with discretion and with good judgment. These people are running for President of the United States. They're not felons!"

Balboni pointed out that many of our institutions had come under a cynical light.
"The more these candidates get down in the mud, the more the presidency is diminished in stature. When America's best known anchorman engages in a vituperative, personal dialogue with the Vice President of the United States, that takes the press as an institution and demeans it," he said.
He added, "Then the whole process of electing a president becomes a circus, and
that is a terrible, terrible thing."

Live versus taped interviews

"Generally, I'm not a big fan of live candidate interviews and I usually don't ask my anchors to do it. But, from time to time they must, and it is incumbent upon the anchor to be as well- prepared as the candidates are," said Wasserman.
Instead of a live interview, he'd much rather do the story on tape. He had reporters who were covering the story and knew it much more intimately than the anchors did, prepare the pieces.

The same was true in Boston. Most of the political stories they did were reported pieces. In fact, they tried to keep the live interviews to a minimum because they were usually not that revealing.

"We do them when there is a specific need," said Balboni.
The station was involved in a Gallup polling project and often got candidate reaction, but most of what they did was on tape and not live.

"There are some things candidates are going to say regardless of what you ask them. A reporter can do a much more thorough job of dealing with it than you can ever do in a live situation," he argued.

But, there are times when a live interview is important.
When they did them, the WCVB anchors reviewed questions with their political reporter.

"We know what we want to ask and we ask it in a polite, respectful manner. The answer we get is the answer we get. Badgering candidates for answers you want --- as opposed to what they want to say --- is unacceptable, and it's naive," Balboni stressed.

He felt a live interview was not the forum to achieve those kinds of journalistic results. "That should come from investigation, or just good old-fashioned reporting. In the unlikely circumstance we were interviewing a candidate and he became combative, we would avoid it and seek to end the interview as quickly as possible," said Balboni.

Measuring Public Opinion

WPLG did a call-in opinion poll on the Rather incident.

"I was amazed by two things: the number of calls we got and the results. It was almost a 50-50 split," Wasserman said.

The question was  "Do you think Dan Rather was out of line?"
"It was definitely a question where people had to pass judgment on Rather's behavior and it was virtually a 50-50 split," he said.

The Magid Survey

Frank Magid Associates did a survey on the incident, polling 500 viewers across the country shortly after the Bush-Rather encounter.

There was broad public awareness of the exchange.
Three out of four (76%) of the people surveyed said they were aware of the incident. Sixty-five percent said they had either seen it live or in follow-up stories.

"But, it didn't change a lot of people's opinions. When we asked whether their opinion of Rather or Bush had changed, about 70% said their opinion hadn't changed. Basically, people who had an opinion, had their opinion confirmed," said Suzanne Sell, Manager of Research Services for Frank Magid Associates.

The poll found:

--- Those whose opinion changed about Bush were Bush supporters who became more positive.

--- The ones who changed opinions about Rather, were Rather detractors who became more negative.
The survey asked people their reactions to Rather's performance. The breakout:

The analysis: Older people were most likely to feel Rather was disrespectful.
"The significance of that is older people are very frequent news viewers and very consistent news viewers," said Dave Smith, Manager of Television Consultation for Magid.
"Demographically, they are an important population to news viewing --- and they're an especially important population in diary-rated markets," he stressed.
Older people filled out diaries more faithfully and they watch lots of news.

The survey also asked viewers to agree or disagree with various statements.

Slightly more than half those interviewed felt Bush should be asked firm questions. 54% agreed with this statement: "Dan Rather had to be tough with Bush because Bush hasn't answered all the questions about his involvement in the Iran Contra affair."

Sell said, "Clearly, there is a feeling the questions were legitimate for a political candidate."

And, roughly the same number (58%) thought Rather would have interviewed any other candidate the same way.

However, nearly half of them (47%) agreed with this statement: "In his interview, Rather acted in a smug and superior
manner."

Carefully evaluate live opportunities

Living in Iowa and watching how the candidates had set up their campaigns had given Smith a unique perspective.

"You need to evaluate whether a candidate has a particular image problem which he or she may try to address by using your live interview," he warned.
Look for any issue that could come out in that live interview and for anyone using you to make a point to help their image.

"Bush had an axe to grind. He knew he had a national image problem and I think he was looking for the vehicle which a live interview provides to show he was not a wimp," said Smith.

"Make sure you don't get used as a forum to solve a candidate's image problem. You can't edit when you're live," he reminded us.

The Magid consultant said the survey showed journalists should definitely ask tough questions. The public expected it and there was no image problem.
"What you should ask yourself is, 'How should I ask the tough question?'" said Smith.
He said this study pointed out very clearly that's where the rub is. It's okay for Dan Rather to ask it. "But, being seen as discourteous and pompous and high-handed is a problem," he warned.

Smith thought the viewing public expected the press to be courteous --- just like a neighbor expects a neighbor to be courteous.

"The First Amendment right does not include the God given right to be rude," he said.

"It's not fun to watch a reporter rip someone else apart on television in your living room. It makes people uncomfortable to see that," said Sell.

When dealing with candidates who have been coached, Smith said:
"Be persistent, don't be emotional."

"Ask the same question over if you're not getting the answer. Don't cut them off and don't sum up what you think they said," he suggested. Do the interview and let the audience decide what the person said.

He felt stations should concentrate on one issue.
"Pick a specific issue of interest to your local audience and try to work it over. If there are other issues, there are other nights," he added.

Smith said morning programs which rely on interviews as a mainstay of their format have learned that between 11 to 21 minutes seem to be a manageable length while keeping the pace of the program.

Anchors must be careful about sending signs by raising their voice, over-anxious visible activity with their hands, and facial expressions.
"All of that is part of remaining objective. Those are all visual cues that are every bit as communicative as the written and spoken word," he added.

The live newsmaker interview can be a risky situation --- one which your people must be well prepared for, if you're doing it. You don't want the "excitement and chemistry of live television" to develop at the expense of your reputation and credibility.

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