If you don't want to know what the president thinks, don't ask him questions.
Which brings me to my thesis about good journalism: "Ask the right questions and let the answers speak for themselves." The American people don't need to have reality filtered through the cannabis-enriched brain cells of our celebrity media elites, and most people have figured that out.
With Twitter, the president doesn't even need to wait for reporters to ask questions, let alone translate his words for the poor befuddled common folk.
What exactly did the reporter ask, and what level of responsiveness did the subject of the interview exhibit? With a Q&A, we don't have to guess, whereas with any typical five-person-bylined story in the Washington Post or the New York Times, we have no idea what questions were asked, nor can we ascertain whether the reporters' characterization of the answers is trustworthy.
In truth the interview could have ended after the first declarative NO that Rhodes uttered after that first surprising question since he refuses to budge an inch toward giving Trump any credit for his many successes, but it is so much more entertaining to watch Rhodes come up with simplistic answers to Spiegel's thoughtful questions.
Interestingly, if Der Spiegel had written the story with a typical New York Times approach, it would have come across as Ben Rhodes lambasting President Trump as a buffoon and celebrating his ex-boss, but with the skeptical questions interspersed amid Rhodes' rhetoric, you get the sense of a man out of touch with reality - and all without a single interpretation by a know-it-all reporter.
"Ask the right questions and let the answers speak for themselves."
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/02/18/journalism_101_ask_questions_but_let_answers_speak_for_themselves__139493.html
Which brings me to my thesis about good journalism: "Ask the right questions and let the answers speak for themselves." The American people don't need to have reality filtered through the cannabis-enriched brain cells of our celebrity media elites, and most people have figured that out.
With Twitter, the president doesn't even need to wait for reporters to ask questions, let alone translate his words for the poor befuddled common folk.
What exactly did the reporter ask, and what level of responsiveness did the subject of the interview exhibit? With a Q&A, we don't have to guess, whereas with any typical five-person-bylined story in the Washington Post or the New York Times, we have no idea what questions were asked, nor can we ascertain whether the reporters' characterization of the answers is trustworthy.
In truth the interview could have ended after the first declarative NO that Rhodes uttered after that first surprising question since he refuses to budge an inch toward giving Trump any credit for his many successes, but it is so much more entertaining to watch Rhodes come up with simplistic answers to Spiegel's thoughtful questions.
Interestingly, if Der Spiegel had written the story with a typical New York Times approach, it would have come across as Ben Rhodes lambasting President Trump as a buffoon and celebrating his ex-boss, but with the skeptical questions interspersed amid Rhodes' rhetoric, you get the sense of a man out of touch with reality - and all without a single interpretation by a know-it-all reporter.
"Ask the right questions and let the answers speak for themselves."
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/02/18/journalism_101_ask_questions_but_let_answers_speak_for_themselves__139493.html
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