THE DISCOURSE OF THE BROADCAST NEWS INTERVIEW

Abstract

In previous work on the news interview, considerable attention has been devoted to its role as an instrument for holding politicians to account, leading to studies of evasion, of challenges to questions by interviewees, of how neutrality is performed, and of how issues are pursued by interviewers. Apart from Clayman ( 1992 Clayman , Stephen 1992 “Footing in the Achievement of Neutrality: the case of news interview discourse” , in: Paul Drew and John Heritage Talk at Work , Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . [Google Scholar] ) and Ekstr⊘m ( 2001 Ekstr⊘m , Mats 2001 “Politicians Interviewed on Television News” , Discourse and Society 12 , pp. 563 – 84 . [Google Scholar] ), however, few accounts of the news interview examine the other roles that it can serve and its place within the overall economy of news discourse. This article sets out to explore the range of types of news interviews and suggests that it is a mistake to regard the accountability interview with a public figure as the principal or defining type, despite their public salience and despite the way which broadcasters themselves routinely regard them as the cornerstone of their public-service remit.