Interview Questions not to ask

[dlgood]

Was sitting in on a telephone interview regarding one of the Navy's ship programs, mostly handling the charts and data for the program manager to reference... And taking notes to make sure he wasn't misquoted.

By way of advice for those of you who might become reporters... when interviewing a US Navy captain, do not read an incendiary post from an internet forum or posting board, and then ask said captain how it makes him/her feel. Unless your primary purpose is to (A) amuse the junior staff in the room and (b) ensure that you never get an interview request granted again.

Comments

Oh my . . .

[scwlc.livejournal.com]

I'm quite far left myself so you probably don't want to hear my opinions on the military, but I have to say that anyone interviewing another person should probably not bring up incendiary posts made on public boards then ask the interviewee his or her opinion on it. Unless the whole interview is about such a post of course.

Your advice to aspiring reporters seems fully parlay-able into other areas.

What were they thinking?

Re: Oh my . . .

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

The nature of the criticism wasn't so much about how the military is bad or anything, but more about a specific case where a government program (in this case, an amphibious warship) was overbudget, behind schedule, and exhibiting some number of flaws.

I'm not sure what he was trying to do, other than getting the Cap'n to react. Or something. Which is dumb, because this is a Cap'n who doesn't.