CDZ People deliberately step-up to engage in political confab & then won't directly answer a question

[usmbguest5318]

The video below contains excerpts from Don Lemon's show on CNN. The first segment is the one that I've watched and that is why the clip is posted here.

Lemon's show, CNN Tonight, is not a "hard" news show; it is a news commentary, aka editorial, show, much like Firing Line (a show I dearly miss) or McLaughlin Group was. It's purpose is to have panels of commentators ("columnists") discuss things in a political context. Lemon doesn't even pretend that his show is a news show. The show's format is Lemon presents a clip or prefaces a topic and then queries the commentators for various specific aspects of their thoughts about it.

The specific topics seen in the clip are irrelevant to this thread. This thread isn't about them, it's about the fact that people, pundits really, who deliberately put themselves into a situation where they know part of "the deal" is to respond to questions, won't simply answer the question they are asked. They went on the show and knew damn well the show's format is one of Q&A driven discussion, not extemporaneous speech.

Now I was looking for a video example of what I'm talking about when I saw the first segment of the video below, I knew it (I haven't watched the rest of the clip) was what I was looking for. Why? Well, because the woman gets asked a "softball" opening question, one that's supremely easy to answer, assuming one has given the matter any thought at all, which seeing as all the discussion topics on that show are current events, one must have. And what is her response?

"Well, I don't think we should start there." WTH? It's not her place to establish where the discussion starts. She's not the host! Where a conversation starts is the host's prerogative. She was asked a damn question about her opinion -- the whole reason she's paid to be on the show is to share her opinion (AFAIK, she's not been on the show again). If she's not going to so much as share her opinion on a topic, why was she even there?

​

That is a huge problem with political discourse these days. People have "talking points" rather than discursive sincerity. I don't tune in to hear echoed the same points over and over. If I watch an editorial show or segment, it's to see if someone has a perspective to offer that I haven't considered or conceived. "Talking points" are easy to come by; the politicians themselves deliver them during their interviews on actual news shows as reliably as the milkman brought dairy goods.

 

[Andylusion]

The video below contains excerpts from Don Lemon's show on CNN. The first segment is the one that I've watched and that is why the clip is posted here.

Lemon's show, CNN Tonight, is not a "hard" news show; it is a news commentary, aka editorial, show, much like Firing Line (a show I dearly miss) or McLaughlin Group was. It's purpose is to have panels of commentators ("columnists") discuss things in a political context. Lemon doesn't even pretend that his show is a news show. The show's format is Lemon presents a clip or prefaces a topic and then queries the commentators for various specific aspects of their thoughts about it.

The specific topics seen in the clip are irrelevant to this thread. This thread isn't about them, it's about the fact that people, pundits really, who deliberately put themselves into a situation where they know part of "the deal" is to respond to questions, won't simply answer the question they are asked. They went on the show and knew damn well the show's format is one of Q&A driven discussion, not extemporaneous speech.

Now I was looking for a video example of what I'm talking about when I saw the first segment of the video below, I knew it (I haven't watched the rest of the clip) was what I was looking for. Why? Well, because the woman gets asked a "softball" opening question, one that's supremely easy to answer, assuming one has given the matter any thought at all, which seeing as all the discussion topics on that show are current events, one must have. And what is her response?

"Well, I don't think we should start there." WTH? It's not her place to establish where the discussion starts. She's not the host! Where a conversation starts is the host's prerogative. She was asked a damn question about her opinion -- the whole reason she's paid to be on the show is to share her opinion (AFAIK, she's not been on the show again). If she's not going to so much as share her opinion on a topic, why was she even there?

​

That is a huge problem with political discourse these days. People have "talking points" rather than discursive sincerity. I don't tune in to hear echoed the same points over and over. If I watch an editorial show or segment, it's to see if someone has a perspective to offer that I haven't considered or conceived. "Talking points" are easy to come by; the politicians themselves deliver them during their interviews on actual news shows as reliably as the milkman brought dairy goods.

While true, that isn't even an intentional thing. The whole reason people have 'talking points', is because it is simply the nature of the medium today.... AND it's cultural.

The entire culture of the country today, is that no one wants to sit and listen to a reasoned argument.

Just look at this forum. Half the people on here, respond to complex arguments with 3 sentences. And most if you respond with anything longer than 2 paragraphs, won't even read your argument, to respond to it. I've even had people say "well your post was too long, so I didn't bother reading it", and it was barely 100 words.

And the other half of it is, the medium itself. TV is so expensive, and news programs are so short, that you literally have 60-second sound bites. That's not by accident, nor some nefarious scheme. Put someone on TV is expensive, very expensive. Especially in a nation wide broadcast.

So anyone getting on the news, knows they only have minutes, or seconds to respond. Thus they have to go with quick, to the point, talking points. If you try to have a deep answer, you are likely to get cut off, and getting cut off is even worse, because then your political opponents will tare you apart ripping up your incomplete answer.

This is the nature of the beast, and I don't think it will change anytime soon.

 

[midcan5]

Just because the answer doesn't appeal to you, does that make it wrong? Media is so time managed the answers will be short and mostly known talking points. But in case you missed it the right in America has created talking points, dog whistles, frames, memes, and other assorted rhetorical devices that fill in the blank before thought has a chance. Think for a moment and I'm sure you'll come up with a few.

'How the Right Hijacked the Magic Words.' How the Right Hijacked the Magic Words

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Fish_FreeSpeech.pdf

 

[usmbguest5318]

Just because the answer doesn't appeal to you, does that make it wrong? Media is so time managed the answers will be short and mostly known talking points. But in case you missed it the right in America has created talking points, dog whistles, frames, memes, and other assorted rhetorical devices that fill in the blank before thought has a chance. Think for a moment and I'm sure you'll come up with a few.

'How the Right Hijacked the Magic Words.' How the Right Hijacked the Magic Words

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Fish_FreeSpeech.pdf

Just because the answer doesn't appeal to you, does that make it wrong?

Provided a respondent's response to a given question actually answers the question asked, of course the extent to which it appeals to me or doesn't has no bearing on whether the answer is correct or incorrect.

• Question asked: "What's your opinion of the retweet of the Heidi Cruz and Melania Trump picture?"
• Omarosa replied: "Well, I don't think we should start there."
  • I'm sure that's what she thought because she said so, but that reply doesn't indicate what she thinks about the retweet of the photographs about which she was asked. What it tells us is what she thinks about where the conversation regarding the photos being retweeted should start.

I just now watched the rest of the video. Another example of a paid commentator not directly answering the question asked include:

• Asked of Paris Somebody-or-other:
  • Question: "Do you actually know the definition of 'fake news' is?"
  • Paris' reply: "What we are doing right now."
    1. Sorry, but at best that would be a description (a statement, picture in words, or account that describes; descriptive representation.), not a definition, which is a formal statement of the meaning or significance of a word, phrase, idiom, etc.
    2. There are only two direct answers to the question asked: "yes" or "no." Whether the person being asked explains their direct answer is up to them, but everything that Paris might have said other than "yes," "no," or a synonym for those words is a deflection or non-answer or any number of things other than an answer to the question asked.

In another clip from the video, Lemon says, "Come on. Don't come on and be smug and cute and try to lie to me." Being "smug and cute" is precisely what it seems a lot of commentators seem given to doing. If the host is perceived as liberal, the conservative commentators are "smug and cute." When the host is conservative, it's the liberal ones who are. Either way, it's not helpful to viewers. At the most, it informs viewers, by way of example, that there are grown people who are smart and who yet on national television will devolve to about the level of 15 year-old when sharing their thoughts and/or making a point. If you've raised kids (I've raised four.) you know exactly what I mean.

Media is so time managed the answers will be short and mostly known talking points.

I have watched a political commentary shows. They have enough time for the guests to answer the question and follow with their own point. I just want people to answer the questions asked. If they also make a point of their own that's tangential, off-point, or whatever, I'm fine with that, provided they first directly answer the question they were asked.

 

[jwoodie]

The OP confuses form for substance. Does anyone else care about Heidi Cruz and Melania Trump or what someone's definition of fake news is?

This is typical of the Trump opposition: Don't debate his policies (much less offer an alternative), just carp about insignificant sound bites.

P.S. If you want to ask me a question of substance, feel free to do so.

 

[Andylusion]

Just because the answer doesn't appeal to you, does that make it wrong? Media is so time managed the answers will be short and mostly known talking points. But in case you missed it the right in America has created talking points, dog whistles, frames, memes, and other assorted rhetorical devices that fill in the blank before thought has a chance. Think for a moment and I'm sure you'll come up with a few.

'How the Right Hijacked the Magic Words.' How the Right Hijacked the Magic Words

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Fish_FreeSpeech.pdf

Just because the answer doesn't appeal to you, does that make it wrong?

Provided a respondent's response to a given question actually answers the question asked, of course the extent to which it appeals to me or doesn't has no bearing on whether the answer is correct or incorrect.

• Question asked: "What's your opinion of the retweet of the Heidi Cruz and Melania Trump picture?"
• Omarosa replied: "Well, I don't think we should start there."
  • I'm sure that's what she thought because she said so, but that reply doesn't indicate what she thinks about the retweet of the photographs about which she was asked. What it tells us is what she thinks about where the conversation regarding the photos being retweeted should start.

I just now watched the rest of the video. Another example of a paid commentator not directly answering the question asked include:

• Asked of Paris Somebody-or-other:
  • Question: "Do you actually know the definition of 'fake news' is?"
  • Paris' reply: "What we are doing right now."
    1. Sorry, but at best that would be a description (a statement, picture in words, or account that describes; descriptive representation.), not a definition, which is a formal statement of the meaning or significance of a word, phrase, idiom, etc.
    2. There are only two direct answers to the question asked: "yes" or "no." Whether the person being asked explains their direct answer is up to them, but everything that Paris might have said other than "yes," "no," or a synonym for those words is a deflection or non-answer or any number of things other than an answer to the question asked.

In another clip from the video, Lemon says, "Come on. Don't come on and be smug and cute and try to lie to me." Being "smug and cute" is precisely what it seems a lot of commentators seem given to doing. If the host is perceived as liberal, the conservative commentators are "smug and cute." When the host is conservative, it's the liberal ones who are. Either way, it's not helpful to viewers. At the most, it informs viewers, by way of example, that there are grown people who are smart and who yet on national television will devolve to about the level of 15 year-old when sharing their thoughts and/or making a point. If you've raised kids (I've raised four.) you know exactly what I mean.

Media is so time managed the answers will be short and mostly known talking points.

I have watched a political commentary shows. They have enough time for the guests to answer the question and follow with their own point. I just want people to answer the questions asked. If they also make a point of their own that's tangential, off-point, or whatever, I'm fine with that, provided they first directly answer the question they were asked.

Well let me give you an example.

Do you support trade sanctions against Apartheid S.Africa?

No.

That was a direct answer to a question. The problem there is, you end up with other people filling in the reasons. He supports racism. He hates black people. He loves injustice. He support an evil government. And on and on and on.....

Now here's the kicker.... even if that same person went on to explain all their reasons and motives, no one would care, because he said 'no'... and thus he's evil and racist and so on. No matter how sound and well reasoned his explanation is, that part would be cut, and the 60-second sound bite, would be only of him saying 'no'. Nothing else would be in the clip.

He could explain that trade sanctions rarely if ever, harm the host country enough to cause real change in police.

He could explain that often sanctions, only result in the government using it as propaganda to galvanize support from the public, because they are being attacked by an evil outside country.

He could explain that in the end, the sanctions only end up hurting the low-income black people, that they would be supposedly doing the sanctions to support.

He may point to how sanctions have never brought about change in Cuba, and that the Castro government has repeatedly blamed the sanctions for every failure of their economy that isn't even affected by the sanctions.

Just like Sanctions against Russia haven't stopped the occupation of Crimea, nor the support of war in the Ukraine, and how Russia has used the sanctions to gain support of the public for Putin, because everything bad in the economy is the evil EU's fault, and it justifies their claim the rest of the world is against them.

But if he did exactly what you say, and when asked if he supports sanctions against South Africa Apartheid, he simply said "no" and then followed up with his explanation... we would be hearing on CNN and NBC, and CBS, a 30-second clip, of him just saying "no", and then all the news 'reporters' would report the news of their opinions about why he's racists and evil, and hates blacks.

This is the reality of the situation.

 

[usmbguest5318]

The problem there is, you end up with other people filling in the reasons. He supports racism.

That's certainly something that can be done, and it's one way to take an individual's answer out of context. Doing so is as irresponsibly duplicitous as not directly answering the question. And, yes, we all know it has been done by some shady axe-grinding commentators/editorialist. I can't say that I have seen much if any of that sort of thing done as part of "hard" news presentations by any of the major news outlets/reporters.

A key factor I think too many people overlook is that as receivers of information, everyone has a duty to exercise enough intellectual curiosity to ask ourselves, "Is there more to it than just what I've heard?", and then go get the answers and not just the ones we might like.

Another thing that comes to mind is that while I think your point has some applicability when it's an appointed or elected official, I'm hard pressed to think that there would be any sort of headline or behavior such as that you describe if one of the paid commentators were to simply and directly answer the questions they are asked. And this thread's OP is about the way in which political commentators and "regular" people like members here too -- people who have chosen to engage in a political discussion -- "duck, bob and weave" rather than with integrity answering the question and thereby advancing the discussion.

 

[jwoodie]

The OP confuses form for substance. Does anyone else care about Heidi Cruz and Melania Trump or what someone's definition of fake news is?

This is typical of the Trump opposition: Don't debate his policies (much less offer an alternative), just carp about insignificant sound bites.

P.S. If you want to ask me a question of substance, feel free to do so.

I'm waiting...

 

[usmbguest5318]

Do you support trade sanctions against Apartheid S.Africa? No.

That was a direct answer to a question. The problem there is, you end up with other people filling in the reasons.

Another thought....I suppose people might do that to politicians. What I find baffling is that people here do it. I know you must have seen it. It's done with phrases/tactics like:

• "Translation....."
• "You're saying that....." -- Quite often what the original author wrote was clear, and "that" wasn't it at all.
• Inaccurate paraphrasing

That "regular" people who took it upon themselves to engage in a conversation do it is, to me, even more astonishing than that people do it to politicians.

 

[Andylusion]

The problem there is, you end up with other people filling in the reasons. He supports racism.

That's certainly something that can be done, and it's one way to take an individual's answer out of context. Doing so is as irresponsibly duplicitous as not directly answering the question. And, yes, we all know it has been done by some shady axe-grinding commentators/editorialist. I can't say that I have seen much if any of that sort of thing done as part of "hard" news presentations by any of the major news outlets/reporters.

A key factor I think too many people overlook is that as receivers of information, everyone has a duty to exercise enough intellectual curiosity to ask ourselves, "Is there more to it than just what I've heard?", and then go get the answers and not just the ones we might like.

Another thing that comes to mind is that while I think your point has some applicability when it's an appointed or elected official, I'm hard pressed to think that there would be any sort of headline or behavior such as that you describe if one of the paid commentators were to simply and directly answer the questions they are asked. And this thread's OP is about the way in which political commentators and "regular" people like members here too -- people who have chosen to engage in a political discussion -- "duck, bob and weave" rather than with integrity answering the question and thereby advancing the discussion.

Yeah, I think it can be well established that people are generally not good at critical thinking, especially when they already have a partisan, or ideological attitude.

This the whole reason that nearly every government in world history has made an effort to control the media. Not just for personal gain, but also to prevent the public from destroying itself. Even in modern 1st world countries, we see the recent complaints against fake news, because people are not able to tell much is true or false.

 

[Spare_change]

The real problem is much more systemic.

Journalists once were taught that you report both sides of the issue, and you tell it in a manner that you do not influence the reader. The goal is to have the reader think about it, and make his own determination.

However, the press started "reading its own press clippings." They somehow got the mistaken concept that THEY were the arbiters of opinion, and that their stories should reflect a particular position. It is virtually impossible today to read/hear a news story that is not intended to influence your position. Frankly, it's sloppy journalism, tinged with a great amount of ego. Watching CNN these days is an embarrassment.

When university professors abdicated their responsibility to teach critical thinking, and took up the cudgel of political indoctrination, we all were the losers.

 

[Spare_change]

The problem there is, you end up with other people filling in the reasons. He supports racism.

That's certainly something that can be done, and it's one way to take an individual's answer out of context. Doing so is as irresponsibly duplicitous as not directly answering the question. And, yes, we all know it has been done by some shady axe-grinding commentators/editorialist. I can't say that I have seen much if any of that sort of thing done as part of "hard" news presentations by any of the major news outlets/reporters.

A key factor I think too many people overlook is that as receivers of information, everyone has a duty to exercise enough intellectual curiosity to ask ourselves, "Is there more to it than just what I've heard?", and then go get the answers and not just the ones we might like.

Another thing that comes to mind is that while I think your point has some applicability when it's an appointed or elected official, I'm hard pressed to think that there would be any sort of headline or behavior such as that you describe if one of the paid commentators were to simply and directly answer the questions they are asked. And this thread's OP is about the way in which political commentators and "regular" people like members here too -- people who have chosen to engage in a political discussion -- "duck, bob and weave" rather than with integrity answering the question and thereby advancing the discussion.

Yeah, I think it can be well established that people are generally not good at critical thinking, especially when they already have a partisan, or ideological attitude.

This the whole reason that nearly every government in world history has made an effort to control the media. Not just for personal gain, but also to prevent the public from destroying itself. Even in modern 1st world countries, we see the recent complaints against fake news, because people are not able to tell much is true or false.

There was once an expectation of truth --- now, we have to search for it.