Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Moving past Gotcha.

"Yeah, thanks for taking my question, Tony"

Shaun Carney, the best writer on the Age in my opinion, has an interesting take on the election thus far and I urge you to take a look.

For me, the most telling comment was this one about Jules’ performance on Q&A;

The great strength of Monday night's show lay in the fact that the questions came from voters and did not follow the gaffe-chasing methodologies that embody so much of the media's current approach to politicians. The questions seemed to be put with the goal of eliciting a genuine response, not catching out the interviewee. Gillard managed to be disarming without altogether surrendering her prime ministerial air.

This dumb obsession with the “gotcha” moment by the meeja is making me tear out what’s left of my hair.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll take a bit of both, please.

I like the Q&A format, even if I don't believe it's as audience driven as it likes to present itself. I think it's nice to occasionally give a politician some room to lay out an answer without having to play a game of verbal cat-and-mouse with someone else. And of course, they still have to negotiate the studio audience and run the risk of being booed for appearing too slippery, or in some cases, just hanging themselves with the extra rope.

On the other hand, I like to have my 7:30 Report and Lateline type interviews too. And yes, while I agree that a lot of unnecessarily personal, obscure and irrelevant questions do get asked, I still love to see politicians getting expertly hammered on the inconsistency, inadequacy, hypocrisy, repugnance, misinformation, and stupidity in the details of their policy.

Unknown said...

I'm all for being "happey" but not everyday, that's just too exhausting.

squib said...

That sheep reminds me, if Tone gets in, I'm migrating to NZ

squib said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ramon Insertnamehere said...

BTW Squib, my Julia Gillard badge has been much admired of late.

notcatlick said...

If we're going to riff on prior political slogans, how about one for the hoi polloi, the trough snuffling, pork barreled hordes who stand in line, hands outstretched, gapes wide, drooling in a three year cycle. "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Greedy stupid fuckers make a nonsense of policy and nation building.