3.19 Answers to self-teaching questions (1-4)

QUESTION 1:
A company announces a new herbal product will, they say, cure an important disease. All the claims and all the evidence come from the company. What is your first question for the following interviewees?

1. The company spokesperson
2. Someone suffering from the illness
3. A World Health Organisation representative
4. A local doctor

Answer: A variety of first questions are possible, including the following:

1. Does someone else have independent, scientifically sound confirmation of the results?
2. Tell us about the day you discovered you had this disease.
3. What immediate steps need to be taken to deal with this illness?
4. How big a health risk is posed by this disease?

QUESTION 2:
While speaking to a representative of a science institution or ministry in a face-to-face interview, he or she says: "That question is not important. I'm not going to answer that question." How should you respond?

1. "Are you avoiding the question?"
2. "I can't force you to answer the question, but it does rather make you look as if you are dodging the issue."
3. You don't respond at all, you simply go on to the next question.
4. You repeat the question.
5. You avoid a confrontation but lay a complaint later with the interviewee's boss.

Answer:

1. An acceptable response, as long as it is delivered in a calm and professional manner. If journalist appears upset or irritated, it can suggest that you are taking the exchange personally.
2. A good response, because it leaves the way open for the person being interviewed to answer the original question.
3. A terrible response. You have now given control of the interview to the interviewee. You have abdicated!
4. A possible response, but it can be boring in broadcasting to hear the same question repeated in an identical manner. It might be suitable in interviews for print and internet reports, however.
5. This tactic does not rescue the actual interview. It may only be worth considering if you know that you need to interview this person on a regular basis.

QUESTION 3:
There is an outbreak of bird flu in your region. A journalist has interviewed the following people, asking each person one question. Why is each one a bad question for that particular interview?

1. A subsistence-level chicken farmer, a grandmother operating in the informal economy; "Do you know how H5N1 works?"
2. A state veterinarian in charge of monitoring the country's biggest chicken market; "Why haven't you done more to fight bird flu?"
3. A bird life campaigner who says bird flu doesn't really exist but is a plot by the CIA and western intelligence agencies to destroy the indigenous economy; "Describe this plot by the CIA to make us believe in bird flu."
4. The owner of a large company owning many chicken farms as well as the distribution network which gets the poultry into the supermarkets; "Is the government doing enough to protect your chickens?"
5. A representative of the medical company marketing some of the drugs for avian influenza; "Is the government buying enough drugs from you?"
6. A local epidemiologist; "Can you tell me how many fatalities there have been in absolute terms and as a percentage of the chicken population, and then compare the situation with last year?"

Answers:
A number of answers are possible, including:

1. You're likely to get either the answer "yes" or the answer "no," which doesn't take you very far. And it doesn't take advantage of the strengths of interviewing this kind of non-science person about a science issue.
2. We want to know what he does when he comes across a dead chicken. We don't want one individual blamed for all government policy, particularly when it comes to a highly infectious, little-understood illness. And the question doesn't ask anything interesting about his work. When asked the right questions, an Indian veterinarian once spoke about the stresses of fighting bird flu with no way to deal with sick fowl besides slaughtering them, and with laboratory results not appearing until months later.
3. In some circumstances, you could persuade an interviewee to ruin his own case in this manner, if your audience were sufficiently well-informed. But consider these recent incidents: a campaign to vaccinate against polio flounders in Nigeria and parts of India after allegations that vaccinated children become infertile as adults; the South African government refuses to believe in the existence of HIV/AIDS; the Gambian president claims that he can cure people of AIDS with herbs in three days; the Zimbabwean police confiscate women's sanitary supplies on the grounds that they are poisoned. It is essential in these situations to provide a balanced range of views so as not to give undue publicity to someone whose views do not merit coverage.
4. People will always agree that someone else should be doing more in a given situation. You want to find out what he's doing, not what he thinks the government should be doing.
5. Have you ever heard anyone from a drug company saying that they're selling too much?
6. Asking any question which results in a string of numbers is going to confuse you and your intended user of the story. Numbers should be kept to a minimum.

QUESTION 4:
Powerful people can be intimidating to interview. But they are often quite accustomed to being asked questions, so sometimes the biggest obstacle is your own attitudes. Write down your main question as if you have been given a five-minute interview with the following people on the following topics:

1. Nobel Peace Prize winner and first democratic president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela; HIV/AIDS.
2. Your own government's prime minister or president; news that his or her son is HIV positive.
3. The secretary-general of the United Nations; climate change.
4. The governor of the World Bank; the need to fund scientific research and development.
5. A quantum physics professor who's just been told that she's won this year's Nobel prize.

Answers:
A variety of answers are possible.

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