The Mirror

NPR Is A Sophisticated Operation, Except When It Comes To Questioning The President

Betsy Rothstein Gossip blogger
Font Size:

Truly, it’s naval gazing at its finest.

NPR likes to publish first-person accounts of what it’s like to question the President of the United States. So how come they can’t come up with questions they don’t already know the answers to?

In its most recent display of examining the fascinating, mind-numbing process of what it’s like to prepare to question POTUS, NPR’s senior editor of Marketplace Kai Ryssdal, clearly an accomplished journalist, writes about the complex process involved when the White House calls and says Ryssdal has 15 minutes with President Obama.

“We gather a brainstorming team, of course, to figure out what we want to get out of the interview and how to frame the questions. But then the ideas start coming. Everybody’s got a thought on what I should ask him – which is great. Catch is, I’ve only got a finite amount of brain space to process all those ideas. … Then – and this is the only way to describe it – I had a moment of clarity. I knew how the interview was going to go, I knew how his answers were going to go, and I knew exactly how it was going to turn out.”

Here’s a question: If the editor already knows how it’s going to go, how about come up with different questions?