Learning objective

Students will critically analyse the underlying issues when interviewing politicians, identifying biases and ensuring factual accuracy. They will evaluate the effectiveness of their questions in eliciting informative responses.

• Student-facing objective: By the end of this lesson the student will be able to spot biases and ask questions that seek to elicit clear, accurate answers from politicians.
• Standards: The journalist will better understand the underlying issues that need to be recognised when interviewing politicians.

Learning activities

Warm-up

Notice and wonder: Display a short video clip or audio excerpt of a politician speaking on a current issue. Ask students, “What do you notice? What do you wonder?” Give them a few minutes to jot down observations and questions. Pair students to share their thoughts. Then, select a few students to share with the class. Record their insights and questions on the board. This primes students to think critically about political communication and prepares them for deeper analysis in the lesson.

Direct instruction

• Conceptual understanding: Begin with a discussion on the role of journalists in political interviews. Ask students to define the purpose of interviewing politicians. Highlight the importance of uncovering biases and ensuring factual accuracy. Use real-world examples of interviews where biases were evident or facts were misrepresented. Encourage students to identify these elements in the examples provided.
• Procedural skills and fluency: Introduce a framework for crafting effective interview questions. Explain the difference between open-ended and closed-ended questions. Provide examples of each type and discuss their potential impact on the interview. Have students practice rewriting closed-ended questions into open-ended ones, focusing on eliciting more informative responses.
• Application: Present a scenario where students must prepare questions for a mock interview with a politician on a specific issue (e.g., climate change policy). Divide students into small groups to brainstorm and draft questions. Emphasise the need for questions that are unbiased and factually grounded. After drafting, have each group share their questions with the class for feedback and refinement.

Guided practice

Think, Pair, Share: Guide students through a structured practice session.

• Think: Begin by presenting a brief transcript of a political interview. Ask students to individually identify potential biases and inaccuracies in the questions or responses.
• Pair: Have students pair up to discuss their findings, encouraging them to compare their observations and refine their analysis.
• Share: Facilitate a class discussion where pairs share their insights. Encourage students to critique and build upon each other’s observations, focusing on how the questions could be improved for clarity and accuracy.
• Feedback: Provide targeted feedback on their analyses, highlighting strong points and areas for improvement.
• Reflection: Conclude with a reflective question: “How can we ensure our questions are both unbiased and factually accurate?” Encourage students to write a brief response, synthesising their learning from the activity.

Independent practice

• Exercise: Direct students to complete an exercise where they analyse a provided transcript of a political interview. Instruct them to identify and annotate instances of bias, inaccuracies, and effective questioning techniques.
• Observation: Circulate the classroom, observing students’ work. Offer guidance and support as needed, ensuring students are accurately identifying key elements.
• Peer review: Have students exchange their annotated transcripts with a peer. Each student should review their partner’s work, providing constructive feedback on the identification of biases and the effectiveness of the questions.
• Revision: Allow time for students to revise their annotations based on peer feedback, reinforcing their understanding of unbiased and factually accurate questioning.

Assignment

Ask students to answer these questions:

1. What is one strategy you learned today for identifying bias in political interviews?
2. How can you ensure your questions are factually accurate when interviewing a politician?
3. What’s one question you still have from today’s lesson?

Here are some suggested answers:

• Suggested answer to Question 1: Look for language that suggests opinion rather than fact, and check for any assumptions in the questions.
• Suggested answer to Question 2: Research the topic thoroughly and cross-check facts from multiple reliable sources.

Teacher resources

Differentiation guide

Advanced learners: Encourage deeper analysis by having students research a politician’s past interviews. Task them with identifying patterns in questioning and responses, focusing on how these influence public perception. Challenge them to create a set of questions that could reveal new insights or challenge the politician’s narrative.

Striving learners: Simplify the task by providing a list of common biases and inaccuracies to look for in political interviews. Offer sentence starters for crafting questions. Pair them with peers for collaborative question development, ensuring they receive support and feedback throughout the process.

Background reading: We recommend you read the article How to interview politicians before adapting the lesson outline for your own purposes.

Notable definitions

• Bias: A tendency to present information in a way that reflects a particular perspective or agenda, rather than being neutral or objective. Recognising bias is crucial for journalists to ensure balanced reporting.
• Fact-checking: The process of verifying information to ensure its accuracy and truthfulness. This is essential in journalism to maintain credibility and trustworthiness.
• Open-ended questions: Questions designed to encourage a full, meaningful answer using the subject’s own knowledge or feelings. These questions are crucial in interviews to elicit detailed and informative responses from politicians.

Required materials

• Video/audio clip of a politician speaking on a current issue
• Whiteboard and markers for recording student insights
• Printed transcripts of political interviews for analysis
• Exercise handouts with interview transcripts for independent practice
• Peer review forms for feedback exchange
• Access to computers or tablets for research and fact-checking (optional)

Lesson summary

• Warm-up
• Direct instruction
• Guided practice
• Independent practice
• Assignment

The free teaching tools at the Khan Academy were used as a basis for converting the original article into a lesson plan.

Related article

How to interview politicians

The post Lesson: Interviewing Politicians first appeared on Media Helping Media.

Journalism is often referred to as “the fourth estate”, and is seen as being crucial to the functioning of a healthy and fair society.

In democracies, the role of the journalist is suppose to be to inform the public debate so that the audience can make educated choices.

The role of politicians is supposed to be to represent those who elected them, and to ensure that the concerns of that electorate are listened to, considered, and, where appropriate, acted upon.

In such a political system, the journalist should act on behalf of the audience to ensure that politicians do their job.

The journalist should be exploring and covering the issues that most concern their readers and listeners.

In doing so they should include a diversity of voices and political opinions in order to offer the richest and most complete coverage possible.

If they achieve that, they are more likely to offer journalism that enhances understanding and encourages dialogue and debate.

The fourth estate (that’s us)

Journalism is sometimes referred to as “the fourth estate”, and is seen by some as being crucial to the functioning of a healthy and fair society.

Thomas Jefferson, the main author of the US Declaration of Independence, and the country’s third president, once remarked, “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter”.

Perhaps Jefferson was right in suggesting that journalists are more important to society than politicians. Perhaps, in some societies, the politicians know and fear that.

What is clear is that the relationship between journalists and politicians can have a significant impact on the functioning of a fair and just society.

Politicians make decisions and take action on behalf of the public. Journalists scrutinise those decisions and report the implications to the public.

Journalistic types – which are you?

To understand the relationship between the media and politics, it’s important to look at the various dynamics that can exist between a journalist and a politician.

Here are a few that come to mind:

1. The hunter: Tracks politicians down relentlessly. Follows any trail. This journalist never gives up until they have their prey. They are driven and won’t believe the politician, even when the politician is telling the truth. The hunter journalist can often lack perspective and objectivity. Their contribution to enhancing the understanding of the audience is questionable.
2. The activist: Committed to a cause and will fight any politician who is against that cause while supporting any politician who backs the cause. This journalist can be blinkered and one-dimensional. They find it hard to be objective because they realise that offering another perspective may weaken the angle they wish to push. The activist journalist enjoys being seen as the martyr and often risks becoming the story rather than covering the story. The question has to be asked, can an activist be a journalist and can a journalist be an activist – highly unlikely.
3. The buddy: Becomes a close friend to the politician and rarely questions their position, often taking the stance that the politician is right regardless of any evidence to the contrary. This journalist will do the politician a favour, but will have limits – usually when they think they will be found out. However they will always be ready to lend a hand when needed if they feel that their coverage might benefit the politician and themselves. The buddy journalist is easily manipulated.
4. The possession: Owned by the politician through compromise and over-familiarity. They probably lost their journalistic integrity at an early age. Likely to publish anything the politician wants with no questions asked. This journalist is little more than an unpaid member of the politician’s public relations team. They enjoy name-dropping and being seen as connected to the influential.
5. The party member: Does his or her best to hide their allegiance, but can’t help it showing through in their tone, story choice and their ability (or inability) to ask the searching question. The party member journalist will spend a lot of time rubbishing the political opinions of those with whom they disagree. They can be spotted by their enthusiasm for a story that other, less-compromised, journalists fail to see. They will defend that story choice against all logical reasoning.
6. The comfortable: The “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” journalist. Their view is why fight when you can both have a profitable and easy life? Who will know? This journalist sees their job as a 9 to 5 chore that serves only to provide the means to exist. Usually enjoys fine wine and good food. Is available to all parties to woo. The comfortable journalist sees this as being fair, impartial and objective.
7. The constructive journalist: Manipulated by those who fear probing, rigorous and sceptical journalism. Pressured into self-censorship due to senior and peer-group pressure to take a positive view of news. This could lead to the “constructive journalist” becoming little more than a public relations machine having been stripped of their role in scrutinising, questioning, and holding the powerful to account. The constructive journalist allows those with something to hide to keep their secrets and becomes a messenger for those who are setting the ‘constructive’ and ‘positive’ news agendas.
8. The true journalist: Free from party ties, has integrity and can’t be bought, is passionate about informing the public debate, seeks the truth, reports objectively and fairly, and includes multiple perspectives even including those they dislike. Is prepared to investigate all they hold dear. Sees nobody as being beyond reproach and is realistic about human nature. The true journalist seeks the truth.

The post Journalists and politicians first appeared on Media Helping Media.