A journalist does not conduct an interview out of personal curiosity. An interviewer is a proxy for the audience: she’s there to facilitate the subject’s communication with them. A good journalist will have done their homework, and should always know the answer to every question they ask.
Fresh Air is not hard news. Terri Gross is more interested in having a conversation than in conducting an efficient interrogation of newsworthy information.
I don’t know if it’s NPR or PBS, might be both, where they’ll end a program with naming a sponsor:“Brought to you through the generosity of Jennifer and Ted Stanley.”
I dream of introducing my wife to a couple at a fancy cocktail party and having them say “Why, hello, we’re Jennifer and Ted Stanley.”
Another oft-invoked name is the The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. My kid was working at the Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, and I told him that when people asked him where he worked, he could drop into that PBS announcer voice and say “My salary is brought to me by Robert Wood Johnson… and viewers like you.”
One thing I noticed about Eleanor Beardsley is that she used to have a very annoying and affected sort-of drawl when she was reporting about France, but lately I notice she doesn’t do this nearly as much. I have wondered if this was a response to listener reactions, either directly to her, or through her bosses. Also, she does report on other parts of Europe where they don’t have a regular person.
I have been listening to NPR for so many years that I am getting tired of some of the same old voices. Scott Simon I wouldn’t miss, and in “entertainment” I wish they could get someone with a little more personality to deliver the Sunday puzzle than Will Shortz. I don’t listen to Wait Wait any more just because it’s been going on so long, without significant changes, it’s just tired. On the other hand, I really appreciate the news, now that I will be able to listen to it again without wall-to-wall stories about you-know-who.
I’ve been listening to NPR since the days when Bob Edwards had Red Barber on every Friday morning, and the Car Talk guys used to have a short segment on Weekend Edition Sunday. There are a LOT of old voices I miss. If Scott Simon ever leaves or retires, I may just quit listening to NPR altogether. 
David Sedaris is a friend of mine. He told me once that Bob Edwards refused to use the word “boyfriend” when introducing a story about David and his partner, so they postponed it until a day when Edwards was off.
It’s so common that interviewees begin with “So…” that it must be a stylebook thing that people are advised about. I think it’s the most natural quickest way to start a radio hit.
That’s a habit I fall into when writing comedy routines.
So yeah, I don’t think it’s a stylebook thing as much as a 21st century human being thing.
For years, maybe decades, I have noticed that a spectrum of folks, from all kinds of areas of expertise, when called upon on NPR, and some other outlets, to speak on an important matter, begin with that word. But the word is not part of normal speech between conversants. It’s more like a broadcasting convention now. For me I’ve heard it too many times to think it’s a spontaneous coincidence.
I’ve wondered what it’s like to begin as a public intellectual or pundit, and adjusting to doing good TV hits. I think there are conventions around it.
okay.
If you’re implying that broadcasters are being instructed to start sentences with “so …,” I think that that is so unlikely as to be laughable. People are always picking up linguistic trends from each other. This very thread is evidence of that. This something that isn’t spontaneous coincidence but rather a common phenomenon of unconscious aping of what people hear around then.
It’s not broadcasters who are saying it. It’s the guests. Using the word “So” to begin a media speech is not grammatical and they aren’t professional broadcasters, but rather Drs, scientists, and other widely disparate professionals, who are usually not on mic. I don’t believe this practice started without any discussion about it and why one might want to do it. IMO somebody had to think about it and say " “So…” works."
There’s no way any such “discussion” happened. Nobody instructed people to start saying it. It’s just a linguistic tick, like “like” or “umm.” Nobody told anyone to start saying those ones either.
For me it’s just too specific and identifiable a thing, in the timing, content, and context. We will have to agree to disagree.
Nothing difficult about that one, but way cool indeed.
I always felt that POGGIOLI! would make a great toast exclamation before slamming down your drink.
Come up with some evidence that anything like this happened and I’ll offer even the tiniest bit of consideration that something like this is even remotely possible. Otherwise, it just seems crazy to me that this is any different than any other linguistic trend. (Every linguistic trend looked at in isolation is “specific and identifiable,” so I don’t even understand what that’s supposed to mean.)
Having worked in media and journalism for decades, the very notion that anyone would intentionally tell people to say “so …” strikes me as insane.
That’s really not remotely possible.
For the last, maybe, five years, it seems that every interview I’ve ever heard or seen, whether it’s with a celebrity, an expert, or just someone off the street, at some point one question will provoke the person being interviewed into saying “That’s a great question.”
It’s gotten to be so common, it could be a drinking game.
I don’t drink, though, and it just drives me nuts.
I’m not really sure why-- probably because all the questions are usually pretty good questions, and unless the person doing the interviewing is a child, or a journalism student, such feedback is really hollow. The audience can tell whether or not a question is a good question, or an interesting question.
At first I thought maybe the “good” questions were hitting tender spots, and the response was just to gain a little time to formulate the answer, but the more time goes on, the more this just seems to be some kind of convention-- the person being interviewed says it to be a good sport, or something.
Another thing I considered is that maybe the “great question” is the one the interviewed person was hoping for, and now gets to expound on a pet theory, but the more I hear it, I don’t think that’s it, mainly because the subject does not go on and on excitedly after making the observation that the question is “great,” or even just “good.”
So, drives me nuts. If question number 8 is “a great question,” does that mean that the other ones weren’t so great?
Bashorian said:
I would add that too often it’s obvious that the interviewer knows the answer to the question, and that makes for a boring, if not disingenuous, interview. A lot of leading questions are asked, especially when politics is the subject.
[snipped]
To which lissner responded:
I believe Bashorian was referring to the practice of NPR news anchors “questioning” the NPR reporters at the end of the story (not the reporters asking questions of interviewees which are edited into the reports).
It is pretty clear these questions and responses are scripted and it’s just information that could have been (and should have been) included in the body of the report. It’s not like the anchor has some insightful question about something that wasn’t covered in the report so he asks about it afterward.
It took me a couple of these before I caught on but once I did I was rather surprised by it. Mostly I was surprised that NPR was using such a lame, disingenuous technique. It sounds pretty bush league, in my opinion.
from Lissener: A good journalist will have done their homework, and should always know the answer to every question they ask
I don’t agree. It’s courtroom attorneys that should always know the answer to every question they ask. It’s very much not true for reporters.
The best reporters are the ones that ask the most probing questions and are eager to learn new things and share that with their listeners/viewers.
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It’s a stall