Stupid question.

Long, long ago, 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-up questions on the fly, ask questions requiring more than “yes” or “no” answers, ask again when someone dodges a question, ask for additional information to provide context to answers to questions, and so on.

You’ll note two words are repeated several times: “ask” and “question.” That, we were taught, was how reporters and writers and journalists and broadcasters and talk show hosts and others in the interview business conduct business—by asking questions.

It seems to 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 tell the 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 breaking news, hard news, political reporting, sports interviews, talk shows, panel discussions, or whatever. Interviewers seldom seem to ask questions anymore. Instead, it’s “talk about.”

Talk about this. Talk about that. Talk about, talk about, talk about.

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