The News Interview: Journalists and Public Figures on the Air

by Steven Clayman , John Heritage

• ISBN13: 9780521812597
• ISBN10: 0521812593
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The news interview has become a major vehicle for presenting broadcast news and political commentary. This book examines the place of the news interview in Anglo-American broadcasting as well as its historical development in the United States and Britain. It discusses the fundamental norms and conventions that shape conduct in the modern interview, including the linguistic and interactional practices of journalists. Through analyses of well-known interviews, the book explores the relationship between journalists and public figures, and reveals the tensions lying beneath the surface of the nightly news.

Author Biography

Steven Clayman is Associate Professor of Sociology and is affiliated with the Communication Studies Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research lies at the intersection of talk, interaction, and mass communication. Much of his work concerns various forms of broadcast journalism, with an emphasis on news interviews and presidential press conferences. His articles have appeared in American Sociological Review; American Journal of Sociology; Journal of Communication; Media, Culture, and Society; and Research on Language and Social Interaction John Heritage is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He works in the field of communication and interaction with particular reference to health care and political communication. In the latter field, he has researched extensively on news interviews, political rhetoric and its relationship to audience reactions, and presidential press conferences

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(25)
The news interview in context: institutional background and historical development	26	(31)
Openings and closings	57	(38)
Basic ground rules: taking turns and ``doing'' news interview talk	95	(55)
Defensible questioning: neutralism, credibility, legitimacy	150	(38)
Adversarial questioning: setting agendas and exerting pressure	188	(50)
Answers and evasions	238	(61)
The panel interview: discussion and debate among interviews	299	(38)
Conclusion	337	(10)
Appendix: transcript symbols	347	(7)
References	354	(12)
Subject index	366	(3)
Index of names	369