Stupid question.

Long, longago, when I was a student in journalism school, we learned about interviews.The whole point was to learn to ask probing questions, learn to ask follow-upquestions on the fly, ask questions requiring more than “yes” or “no” answers,ask again when someone dodges a question, ask for additional information toprovide context to answers to questions, and so on.

You’llnote two words are repeated several times: “ask” and “question.” That, we weretaught, was how reporters and writers and journalists and broadcasters and talkshow hosts and others in the interview business conduct business—by askingquestions.

It seemsto be a lost art nowadays. Seldom do I hear interviewers ask a question. Now,it seems, the method-du-jour is to give orders. Instead of asking, you tellthe person you are interviewing to “talk about” this and “talk about” that.Talk about, talk about, talk about. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s breakingnews, hard news, political reporting, sports interviews, talk shows, paneldiscussions, or whatever. Interviewers seldom seem to ask questions anymore.Instead, it’s “talk about.”

Talk aboutthis. Talk about that. Talk about, talk about, talk about.

Whateverhappened to questions and answers? I suppose that’s a stupid question intoday’s world. I guess I should say, “Talk about the demise of asking questionsin interviews.”