Thoughts on Questioning Presidents

[Hala Jawlakh]

I agree that it's more than looking at just cascades.

I agree that reliability of interpretation is a grave issue.
But maybe it can be controlled a bit by having multiple
raters adn then comparing their judgements for inter and
intra rater reliability.

What bothers me is if you have 5 raters and all agree taht a
specific question Eisenhower is asked is not rude, does that
really make it unrude? Eisnhower was president like a hudred
years ago. I know that a lot of stuff that is considered ok
now would have been considered rude when he was president.
For example, if i was talking to my grandpa and i know that
someone said he messed up X, i don't have to say: Grandpa why
did you mess up X? to be rude. Simply asking what happened
with X might be interpreted as rudeness by my grandfather. 1)
I should not bring up stories about him messing up because
this implies that i am accusing him of messing up.  2) who am
i to question him? as a granddaughter, i have no authority,
no power to question him. (did people think of reporters as
having hte right to put politicians on trial at that time?)


another note is that context was not really taken into
consideration (the context outside the press conferences).

But having said all that, i did love the articcle, especially
how they did a concentrated effort to come up with
quantifiable criterea to measure what's going on. I (hind
sight is 20/20) would fine tune the way the data was rated
(in agreement with linnea) and i would be more comfortable
using their technique to compare for example how Kerry and
Busy were treated than to compare two people with 50 years
inbetween.

Also, linnea, i really appreicate it when you e-mail me the
article, sometimes, it's very difficult for me to find the
reading in time.

hala



---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 23:18:41 -0500
>From: Linnea Micciulla <polyglot at BU.EDU>
>Subject: Thoughts on Questioning Presidents
>To: CDA-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>
>This paper provides a number of contributions that are
useful for CDA.  The
>framework for characterizing journalists' questions in a
quantitative
>fashion is a big step forward, and I have been able to adapt
it for my own
>research on press conferences.
>
>I would be interested to hear what people think about the
idea that the
>measures outlined by Clayman and Heritage are easily
codified, and not as
>subject to interpretation as the measures used in other
studies.  The
>criteria seem to me to vary quite a bit in that regard;
hostility seem more
>interpretive and less codifiable than cascades, for example,
but even the
>cascade category could cause disagreement among coders; what
seems like a
>version of the same question to one person might seem like a
different
>question to another person.
>
>In my own investigation of daily White House press
conferences, the
>turn-taking is much less clean than it appears to be in the
Eisenhower and
>Reagan examples.  Both the interviewer and interviewee are
very likely to
>interrupt each other, to repeat the question or to protest
the question.  I
>was thinking that it might be interesting to apply Clayman &
Heritage's
>system to a few examples from a White House press briefing
corpus.  I have
>pasted the first 10 questions (and partial answers) from
Monday's briefing
>below; if you have a chance, let's try coding some of the
questions
>according to the 10 categories, and see how much we agree.
>
>The four categories / ten sub-categories are:
>
>Initiative: complexity, cascades, follow-up
>Directness: other-referencing, self-referencing
>Assertiveness: preface tilt, negative questions
>Hostility: preface hostility, global hostility,
accountability
>
>**********
>White House Daily Press Briefing: November 8, 2004
>
>  1) QUESTION: I realize what's going on in Iraq is
essentially military
>operation, but I thought I'd try to see the political side
of this, what we
>could get from this. Is there a feeling here that there is
some risks, there
>is some necessary, I suppose, risk with losing already not
so strong Sunni
>support by going into Fallujah full blast? Has the Secretary
done anything
>that you want to tell us about on the diplomatic front to
try to explain to
>other governments what we're doing?
>  MR. BOUCHER: The Secretary has been active with other
foreign ministers,
>as have others in the Department, in terms of messages about
the operations
>that are commencing in Fallujah...
>
>  2) QUESTION: Touching on the civilian situation, although
most of the
>people have left, people or civilians often --
>  MR. BOUCHER: I think there is -- yes. The simple answer is
yes. There is
>obvious concern about the civilians in Fallujah. For that
reason, the
>government has, first of all, for days now, encouraged
people to leave and
>many of them have taken the opportunity to get out of town,
get away from
>the fighting...
>
>  3) QUESTION: Does the U.S. share the view of Mr. Solana,
that the security
>situation in Iraq is so bad that the elections cannot be
held in January?
>  MR. BOUCHER: Our view remains the view of the Iraqi
Government, that the
>determination is very strong to bring the elections about on
time -- I think
>  you've seen that in Prime Minister Allawi's statements --
that bringing
>cities back under the control of the central government is,
indeed, a step
>forward in providing every Iraqi with the opportunity to
participate in the
>political process and to participate in the election in
January...
>
>  4) QUESTION: Can I just follow up? You mentioned that the
Secretary spoke
>with Prince Saud of Saudi Arabia. Do you have any more
details on that phone
>conversation?
>  MR. BOUCHER: Just the phone calls. I don't have individual
details on
>individual calls...
>
>  5) QUESTION: Right, friends and partners, indeed. These
foreign ministers,
>can they all be listed in the "yes" column, that they
support what is --
>  MR. BOUCHER: You'll have to ask the individuals what they -
- what their
>view is  of the operation.
>
>  6) QUESTION: Well, then I'm going to ask the question this
way. There's a
>question of -- I'm going to go off on another track. But
there was kind of
>an ambiguous statement put out by the Saudi ambassador here -
- not on the
>main thing, but on the side issue. Is the Secretary calling
friends and
>allies alone, or is he -- is it more of a broad-beamed
consultation?
>  MR. BOUCHER: Well, he's calling countries that are
obviously concerned
>about this situation...
>
>  7) QUESTION: Allegedly, Prime Minister Allawi made some
disparaging
>remarks against Kofi Annan and the UN. Do you find that
might compromise the
>elections, considering that everybody's looking for a role
for the UN?
>  MR. BOUCHER: I don't know what you're referring to.
Certainly, we and the
>Iraqi Government have differed with the Secretary General
over his views of
>possibility of fighting in Fallujah, and I think I made that
clear last
>week, and I think our views are similar to those of the
Iraqi Government in
>that regard...
>
>  8) QUESTION: It's been reported that a hospital out to the
west has been
>captured by coalition troops, but a second hospital has been
totally
>demolished, whether  it be by shelling and/or by the
insurgents themselves.
>If this affects the full downtown center of Fallujah, are
there any plans to
>maybe rebuild it or to have the --
>  MR. BOUCHER: I'm not going to try to do a battle
assessment on an hourly
>basis. I don't think anybody in the U.S. Government is going
to do that. But
>if it is done, the Pentagon will try to explain particular
details of the
>fighting that's going on around that area, various places...
>
>  9) QUESTION: On the issue of the civilians -- I'm sorry,
just to follow up --
>  MR. BOUCHER: Yeah.
>
>  10) QUESTION: The people that have left in the city, are
they being camped
>or housed, or who's taking care of them? Do you have
anything -- I mean, is
>there is anything?
>  MR. BOUCHER: I don't know. I think you'd have to look for
reports on the
>ground, whether they've gone to -- many of these cases,
people go to stay
>with relatives in other places but I don't know specifically
where they've gone.
>
>*****
>Were Clayman & Heritage's categories useful for analyzing
these questions?
>What other measures would be useful to provide a critical
discourse analysis
>of information provided by government sources?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hala Jawlakh
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign