CBS interveiwers suck
4/22/13
The Worst Interviewers in the History of Broadcasting
(CBS)
Do you remember when you were young and you were giving a speech in front of your class, and your teacher would whisper to you the lines that you forgot? Your teacher was trying to spare you embarrassment. This is called facilitating.
Welcome to CBS’ new style of interviewing. Facilitating is not really interviewing. In the corporate media, interviewing has gone from Mike Wallace to Scott Pelley. It used to be like a lawyer cross-examining a defendant in a courtroom. Now, it’s like a mother coaching a child. This new style of interviewing could make me become a Futilitarian. I want to pluck out my nose hairs!
This is how facilitating interviewing works. You ask softball questions that are meaningless. You are interviewee-friendly. You smile like you are the interviewee’s hippomanic B.F.F. You take strolls together through the park and exchange platitudes. Now this is the part that drives me up the proverbial wall: you repeat whatever your interviewee just said. Then you ask obvious questions and make inane remarks.
The notorious Captain Obvious is Scott Pelley. He should retire immediately! His robotic facilitating interviews cast a heavy shroud on the reputation of broadcasting. Watching and listening to him on T.V. makes me want to crawl under the couch and go into a fetal position! The last time I saw Pelley was on 60 Minutes. He was interviewing Boston Police Commissioner, Ed Davis. (By the way, I did find my lost reading glasses, under the couch.)
The following is a sample of the facilitating interviewing style. This is a CBS reporter interviewing a serial killer in prison:
Reporter: So you were found guilty in court for murdering 27 women.
Killer: Yes.
Reporter: So does that make you a murder?
Killer: What a stupid question!
Reporter: So you think I asked you a stupid question!
Killer: Are you retarded! What the F—K?
Reporter: Do you feel like you’re trapped in prison?
Killer: Actually I feel trapped in this room with you!
Reporter: Oh? Are my questions too tough for you? I’m sorry, the public must know!
Killer: The only thing the public will know is that you are a dope!
Reporter: When you eat breakfast, is it in the morning?
Killer: How in the hell did you get this job?
Reporter: So, you want to know how I got this job?
Killer: Are you wearing a hearing aid?
Reporter: Am I wearing a hearing aid?
Killer: What are you? An F----kin parrot?
Reporter: Why did you kill those women?
Killer: Because they asked stupid questions like you do!
Reporter: So, they asked stupid questions?
Killer: Guards!