Tough interviews shouldn't become controversies

ta-nehisi coates, left, and tony dokoupil on cbs mornings on sept. 30.

It’s never good when the interviewer of a high-profile person becomes the story, but some critics need to better understand what makes for a good interview.

Bret Baier of Fox News and Tony Dokoupil of CBS Mornings drew pro and con headlines for their recent TV interviews with, respectively, Kamala Harris and Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of a new book criticizing Israel for its actions in Gaza. CBS News executives told employees that Dokoupil’s interview was too hostile and opinionated and not up to network standards.

That’s an indictment of CBS News, not Dokoupil.

To meet the standards of journalism, and to be most useful to the audience, interviews done by journalists demand pushback to lies, distortions and evasions, which are especially likely when political candidates talk. And controversial views demand probing.

The best stance for an interviewer is that of the “devil’s advocate,” which calls for in-the-moment challenges based on contrary facts or an interviewee’s contradictory previous statements. In disagreement with CBS News, this approach is not tantamount to the journalist’s opinion and in fact should get applied to all interviewees regardless of their politics.

I didn’t have a problem with Dokoupil’s basic idea that he should challenge Coates, who, like most high-profile guests, was fully capable of defending and rebutting. All good interviewers know how to take the edge off their language while still presenting a pointed question, and the host’s first question, which likened Coates’ views to those of an “extremist,” could have been worded differently. But that was merely a non-best practice for the art of interviewing and not justification for the torrent of criticism against Dokoupil.

I also didn’t have a problem with Baier’s mindset that he needed to challenge Harris. But the execution of the interview was egregiously bad and warranted the subsequent attacks on his professionalism. His topics blatantly parroted the Trump campaign’s talking points against Harris. Are transgender prisoners really a fundamental issue that will help voters pick a candidate? No. It was instead pandering – to the Fox audience and to Donald Trump.

He also interrupted Harris constantly. Challenging a speaker does not mean preventing the chance to answer. It does mean explaining the truthful basis for a challenge. But when Baier sought to show that Harris was unfairly slamming Trump for comments about “enemies” within America, Fox showed a deceptively edited clip of Trump. Harris called it out. Baier doubled down – until the next day, that is, when he claimed he had made a “mistake.” It was not a mistake. It was journalistic fraud.

Baier’s interview was notably different from one he did with Trump in June 2023. The question is, was that because of the two candidates’ political difference, or because of their gender difference?

bret baier interviews kamala harris on fox news on Oct. 16.

Baier did what too many news media interviewers do. They decide their mission is to turn the event into a combative contest of interview skills, instead of a chance to benefit voters by adding insight into the policies and intentions of a candidate for office. The measure of success should be deeper understanding of what a candidate would do if elected, not how many times they can be made to verbally stumble. After the Baier-Harris interview, a commentator for MSNBC Daily wrote: “I don’t know if I’d call the finished result a draw, but it was definitely no knockout.” That’s the completely wrong way to judge this or any interview.

The 2024 presidential race demands a caveat, though. Interview performance does matter – as much as the substance of answers – when there’s a question about a politician’s mental fitness (see: “Trump, Donald” and “Biden, Joe”). Challenges by an interviewer are vital in the face of babble, and vital when an interviewee is speaking coherently but evasively.

Tough questioning is a form of candidate accountability and a public service. No one should get upset about it.