It is fairly common now to see criticism of poor grammar in the media, and particularly in the BBC. I agree with those critics, but what irritates me, as someone who used to train managers in negotiating and interviewing skills, is the very low standard of interviewing one hears on the radio. I listen daily to The Today Programme and despair when I hear the interviews, or confrontations as many are more properly called.
Quite apart from the frequent, unnecessary interruptions, the style of questioning is entirely wrong. This morning, Justin (?) asked an interviewee ‘Does it depress you when….’ Has he not been told to avoid asking ‘leading’ questions? A leading question is one that indicates the answer the interviewer expects or seeks. It steers the interviewee, so making the answer worthless as an indication of their real opinion. Leading questions are now common on The Today Programme.
Equally worthless is the ‘piggyback’ form of questioning. With this form, the interviewer asks a question, but before the interviewee can reply, a rider, qualification or explanation is offered in the form of a second question which is slightly different from the first. This allows the interviewee an option: which to answer. On countless occasions I have heard politicians use the piggyback as a means of escaping the original question.
Please, BBC, train your interviewers to use ‘open’ questions, those that give no hint of the interviewer’s opinion or wish, but hang there, demanding a response in the interviewees own words. They are far more effective.
Boadicea's Chariot 
I agree, Tom, I find the whole thing very irritating. It is quite amazing that they fall into such obvious traps, but they are supposedly experienced interviewers!
I still listen, but it’s more from habit, and it does make me quite cross.
I’m still a fan of the BBC, however, especially the radio.
Tom seeing some of the people that get interviewed now the chances of an open question getting a response is pretty low. Most of the interviewees are sports or film/pop stars who can barely string a sentence together, so yes no answers or leading questions is the only way.
Isn’t the answer that the main purpose of the media ‘these days’ is spin? Nobody with a level-headed, rational opinion of anything constitutes ‘news’. The ‘interviewers’ are themselves ‘celebrities’ with ‘images’. At least by reading the news online I avoid those irritating people.
I remember a live news interview I did years ago by a reporter who has since climbed the greasy pole at BBC TV news. I was contacted about a percieved (by the BBC) problem that was allegedly affecting my industry. The more I played it down the more inisitent he became so I relented and said I would do the interview if we spoke about the problems in general that my industry was facing at the time rather than this non existent one. He duly turned up with a camera car and we set up outside our office building having already discussed the content of the interview. Come the countdown we went live and the silly sod, hoping to throw me, took a totally different tack and asked me about the non problem. My response was, “That problem does not exist”, and then shut up. Have you ever watched beads of sweat suddenly break out on someones brow while a look of utter panic flits across their face, I did. He nodded to me with his eyes wide open as if imploring me to talk about this ‘problem’, I stayed silent. He then reverted to the agreed format and we hade a fairly good interview. When we finished he turned and started to load the gear into the camera car without a further word to me, so I turned and went back to my office. I often think of this incident when I see him reporting from all over the place on BBC TV news, I wonder if he ever thinks of me, and breaks out into a muck sweat again.
Go on, tell, OMG…. who was it?
About open ended questions, Rick. What do you mean by that?