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I knew you’d ask that...

Writer's picture: Matt GuarenteMatt Guarente

Updated: Aug 4, 2022

Our new research uncovers the three types of questions reporters ask business leaders

– and when they ask them.


what questions do reporters asl

Guarente + Company research, compiled from over 35 hours of broadcast business interviews and involving nearly 400 questions put to senior leaders, concludes that the questions faced by them can be grouped into three ‘types’. Knowing what those types are, and when they might face them in the course of an interview, helps organisations prepare for, and manage, their leaders’ press engagements.


The research found that questions could be broadly attributed to three groups; Starters, Explainers, and Switchers. In other words, the questions asked by reporters sought start a narrative; further develop a theme; or change to other topics following a response.


‘Starters’ are reasonably self-explanatory – the initial question that gets the interaction underway. Most commonly, these are based on a version of ‘tell me about…’ or ‘what’s going on with…’. Occasionally they can be a challenge – one politician was asked pointedly if he would be stopping wearing a face mask on the day that regulations for the prevention of Covid-19 were eased. His response lasted two seconds.


In broadcast settings, there is often an agreed ‘first question’ because the reporter, and their producer and the programme editor, do not want a car crash – they want an engaging interaction between guest and host. So these questions are often not just facilitative, but known about even days before the interview.


However, interviewees should always be ready to do something valuable with the first question, even if it’s not an easy set-up. If they do not, then they run the risk of the reporter determining the flow of content and shaping the narrative while the guest just fills in the blanks. There are simple ways to assert control at the top of the interview. You don’t do it by being bombastic, or ignoring the question, but by establishing the right to start the narrative where it suits you best. It’s something we work on with almost every leader we coach.


What most often comes next is an ‘Explainer’ question. Explainers accounted for a little over 75% of the second questions that reporters asked and looking at the nature of them, most were facilitative in getting out a narrative that the executive was focused on. Simply, they asked for more detail on that original subject matter.


It might seem that Explainers are ‘easy’ – it means that the interviewee is staying on track and being asked for more explanation or deeper insight, for example ‘where are you seeing most demand?’ was a follow-up Explainer in a Washington Post interview we analysed. But it can also be less comfortable: One example, from the South China Morning Post interviewing Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei: ‘What is the relationship between Huawei and the Communist Party of China today?’.


Indeed, a good number of ‘Explainer’ questions drill down into the narrative and question its premise or its detail. Those interviewees who managed a few Explainers in a row might have felt that either they were going through the wringer, or alternatively that they were being allowed to get to their prepared content. Our view is that if the content is prepared well enough, there is no wringer.


We also recorded a small, but important, subset of the ‘Explainer’ questions – ‘Aligners’. One example is in a BBC Radio 4 interview where the question was ‘You’ve already made that decision?’, and another from the WaPo piece – ‘It’s just a matter of time?’. Both are aligning with what the interviewee has said and asking them to reiterate the message; in both cases, the guest can respond ‘Yes that’s right’ and reiterate or repeat the idea.


If, on the whole, Explainer questions allow interviewees to stay on the main line of their narrative or theme, when do reporters and hosts switch lanes and bring in other themes?


‘Switchers’ are the question type that does this. Typically, it’s when you hear the interviewer say ‘Moving on to…’ or ‘another thing I wanted to ask about…’. This happened just under a quarter of the time on the second question in the interviews we analysed. Which means that in those cases, the initial response to the Starter did not sufficiently capture the attention of the reporter. However, another explanation is that the interviewee themselves moved the reporter on: the first question may have been left field and the response drove the intent of the follow-up, which became a Switcher – all to the benefit of the guest.


One of the interesting data cuts in this was to look at where the first Switcher appears in the interview. In some short interactions, for example on Bloomberg Radio where experts are being asked to comment on market conditions, it sometimes never came: they got a Starter, and a couple of Explainers, and they were done. The most likely time that you will be asked about another subject is the third question – a shade over 65% of third questions were Switchers. There was then a roughly 8-10 percentage point distribution between questions 4, 5 and 6.


So the most common structure of an interview in our data set was: Starter-Explainer-Switcher.


This helps. It means that you should broadly expect to get your own idea out, face at least one question asking for more detail, before a better-than-even chance that the lens then swings to another aspect.


But there is also a subset of the Switcher questions – we called them ‘Branchers’. It’s when there is an adjacency to the previous response that perhaps the interviewee guides the reporter towards. One interview we studied was by Ian King, a British reporter for Sky News, talking with Sir Martin Sorrell, formerly of WPP. He asked about the different approach of the new company Sir Martin was leading, and then followed with a Brancher: ‘and will you be personally different, as a leader?’ Branchers are like soft Shifters. It’s a divergence in the track, not a new track entirely.


Another data slice we investigated was, what happens at the end of interviews? In almost 20 years of coaching, and many others spent as an editor and reporter, it’s clear to me that this can be where the danger lies: you’ve managed 10 questions well, and then along comes a new set of issues to manage and quite often your defences are depleted.


In longer interviews, where more than seven questions were asked, the overwhelming majority of the last three questions were Switchers. Reporters love to fish; they tend to do it when the main part of the interview is already in the bag, and managing these questions at the end can be tough. Our analysis showed that more than 70% of the questions asked in the last three interactions of an interview were Switchers – and one-third of those interviewees had to face three Switchers in a row. Tough going. We advise people that if they sense an interview is wrapping up, they address the question very briefly and then pivot back to a main point to wrap things up which can be done in terms of tonal delivery.


Summary

Business reporters are skilled, resourceful and insightful interviewers often with deep knowledge of their subject. It’s impossible to second-guess what they might ask throughout the course of an interaction and our advice to leaders and those who support them is to focus more on their own narratives, and core likely questions, rather than an exhaustive list of Q&A.

This research enables leaders, and their comms teams, to understand the topography and timing of a business interview better and to deliver more thoughtful, supportive and aligned content when they are interviewed.

Notes:

The research was conducted in July and August 2021 by transcribing every question asked by reporters in a variety of media including Sky News, BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, Bloomberg News, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and CNBC.


Matt Guarente, Principal at Guarente + Company, is a former reporter who has advised on business leadership communications for 15 years.


GuarenteCo.com


Matt@GuarenteCo.com

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