#gotcha questions

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

A "gotcha question" is also known as a follow-up question. Diabolical.

Particularly useful for testing someone's ability to tell the truth.

[shawshoe]

I've listened to all of these media interviews as part of an assignment for an Udemy class on the art of conversation by Krista Tippett (Krista Tippett on Being). Fascinating! The key points that I got out of this exercise are: "Gotcha" questions allure the interviewees to be defensive and therefore create tension and hostility rather than connection and understanding. "Gotcha" questions sound direct to the point, but in reality they tend to keep the main issue from being explored in a meaningful way, resulting in the waste of limited interview time and the attention span of the viewers. The few strengths of "Gotcha" questions seem to be that they draw out the interviewees' honesty, diligence, true strength, authentic character, and humility. The main difference between the mainstream media and the conversation style of Krista Tipett is how the media focuses on controlling the direction of the interview to artificially drive the points it wants to make in stead of learning or confirming other views verses Krista skillfully facilitates the conversation in less structured way in order to give the interviewees a freedom to reflect and explore their own ideas in the context of the interview supported by generous conversation time and "generous questions" that seek new discoveries, true understanding, and genuine human connection.

[veganspin]

Sunday Funny: Constantly Stranded on Deserted Islands

Sunday Funny: Constantly Stranded on Deserted Islands

I love this one, highlights how pointless this “gotcha” question is. Whenever someone asks you, “If you were stranded on a deserted island and there were no plants (what fucking island is this btw, with no plants?!), would you eat meat!?!?” ask them, “If you were stranded on a snowy mountain top and there was no food, no plants or animals, would you eat human!?!?!?”

Just because we might do…

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[futureworldblog]

The "gotcha" question

Back during the 2008 election period – especially after the selection of Sarah Palin as McCain’s VP candidate – I became exceptionally sensitive to the issue of the “gotcha question.”  A reporter asked Sarah a question about (I think) Pakistan, and she gave an honest and unguarded answer (which happened to coincide with Candidate Obama’s stand on the issue).  She later retracted her answer angrily, saying that she’d been asked a “gotcha” question by the media.

    Speaking as someone who interviews people from time to time for a living, here are some comments on this, and on the current election cycle:

    1)     There is no such thing as a “gotcha” question.  If you’re thinking of something like: “Have you stopped beating your wife? Answer yes or no!”, then you are living in a Marx Brothers universe.

2)     Asking a presidential candidate a question about politics, or foreign affairs, or economics, is perfectly fair.  All of these fall within the job requirements, you see.  Presidents have to work in all of those areas.  If you’re hiring someone for a job, you want to see how well they’ll do under stress, and if they know their stuff.  Sometimes you ask them hard questions.  “Why are you so great?” is a pointless question.  So is “Why is your opponent so wrong-headed?”  Both questions are just opportunities to let the candidate recite his/her talking points. 

3)     Tough questions are what it’s all about. Presidents get asked tough questions all the time.  Presidential candidates who whine about being asked tough questions aren’t really thinking about the job they’re seeking.

4)     Presidents are noted for handling tough questions with good humor and candor.   Really good presidents are able to defuse their questioners with charm and tact.  Roosevelt did it; Truman did it; Kennedy did it; Clinton did it; Reagan did it.  This is a valuable skill (see foreign relations, above).

5)     This one is for Herman Cain: being asked the capital of Uzbekistan is maybe a little bit of a Jeopardy! question, and not so much a foreign-policy question (although, ahem, even I know the answer to that one).  However: being asked about American flyover privileges or airbases in Uzbekistan is perfectly okay, since it has to do with what you will (maybe) be doing for the next four years.

6)     Only stupid people want a stupid president.

7)     Why would a clearly unintelligent / uninformed / untrained candidate (like Rick Perry, for example) run for the Presidency?  Presumably because someone told him that he could learn as he went along.  He’d be able to rely on his advisors and staff for the stuff he didn’t know, and he could rely on his gut for the important stuff.  Sound familiar?  Yes, I thought so. 

8)     Watch the Funny Or Die GOP Presidential Debate.  It says all this better than I ever could.  With Patrick Warburton and Leslie Jordan and Larry King yet.

9)     Presidents work for us, not us for them.  We’re the supervisors; we get a say in hiring them.  We get to ask the hard questions in the interview process.

    I hope I live through this election year.  I honestly hope Romney gets the GOP nomination; he’s not electrifying, he’s like the Republican John Kerry.  If it’s someone (god forbid) like Santorum or Gingrich, I may have to drink strychnine. 

    But don’t worry, everyone – the world ends in December, only a few weeks after the election!

[thinkingalexis]

Gotcha Questions?

So the dumbest thing to come out of politics is the coining of the term gotcha question. It is just a way for bad people to under mind a question that would expose them as the little bitch they are. I would not vote for anyone using that term to avoid something.