Journalists interviewing elite athletes: Dumb answers or bad questions?

Abstract

Broadcasting journalists use short, ad hoc interviews for newsworthy events. Because these interviews typically last for just a few minutes, it is a challenge for both journalist and interviewee to address the audience. This study explores journalistic questioning techniques in sixteen live broadcast interviews with athletes carried out by Estonian journalists during the 2018 Olympic Winter Games plus a few examples from sports interviews collected from the Spanish, Italian, Finnish, German and American television. Analysis shows the questioning technique of journalists does not help interviewees to provide well-focused and interesting explanations. The main problems are related to the scope of the questions, blurred focus and the journalists’ inability to use listening-based questioning. As a result of the analysis, we propose a universal model that would help journalists in any field (not just sports journalism) to carry out better ad hoc questioning.