The collapse of mainstream media's business model is a tragedy. The wide-open space to keep pushing for answers is not. How do we combine the best of old and new?
I'm convinced the persistence in questioning in the UK, and the willingness of pols to endure it, has partly to do with question period in Parliament, when everyone in power, especially the PM, has to withstand a barrage of questions and heckles. This is true in Canada as well, and David Frum's mother, Barbara Frum, was probably the greatest North American example of that sort of interview style, on CBC radio's As It Happens. It was pure torture to be interviewed by her if you were a pol in trouble, but everyone had to do it. Why American journalists don't follow up blatant lies by simply repeating a question over and over is beyond me.
This feels like a legit contributing factor, no question. I also always understood that school culture there is highly interrogative, so people get used to being under the heat lamps early on. But yeah, letting blatant lies go by has become all too normal in the U.S.
I'm convinced the persistence in questioning in the UK, and the willingness of pols to endure it, has partly to do with question period in Parliament, when everyone in power, especially the PM, has to withstand a barrage of questions and heckles. This is true in Canada as well, and David Frum's mother, Barbara Frum, was probably the greatest North American example of that sort of interview style, on CBC radio's As It Happens. It was pure torture to be interviewed by her if you were a pol in trouble, but everyone had to do it. Why American journalists don't follow up blatant lies by simply repeating a question over and over is beyond me.
This feels like a legit contributing factor, no question. I also always understood that school culture there is highly interrogative, so people get used to being under the heat lamps early on. But yeah, letting blatant lies go by has become all too normal in the U.S.