Pursuing Answers to Questions in Broadcast Journalism

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Pursuing Answers to Questions inBroadcast JournalismTanya Romaniuk aa Department of Communication, Portland State UniversityVersion of record first published: 14 Apr 2013.

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RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION, 46(2), 144–164, 2013Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0835-1813 print / 1532-7973 onlineDOI: 10.1080/08351813.2013.780339

Pursuing Answers to Questions in Broadcast Journalism

Tanya RomaniukDepartment of Communication

Portland State University

When an individual issues a question, an answer is normatively expected. If an answer is not pro-duced, the questioner may pursue it. However, sometimes it is not the absence of an answer that is atissue but whether that answer is deemed adequate (i.e., fitted to the action and/or topical agenda setby the question). Broadcast interactions (e.g., news interviews, political debates) are a perspicuousenvironment for investigating sequences in which responses to questions are provided but not alwaystreated as answers. This article investigates how pursuits of answers are designed and what theyaccomplish within such contexts. Three key elements of a pursuit’s design are described: namely, itsrecognizability as a pursuit; its fittedness to the previous response; and its sanctioning implications.The analysis sheds light on a central means by which individuals can hold others accountable forresponding and by which a specific form of trouble in question-answer sequences is repaired.

When an individual issues a question, an answer is normatively expected. If an answer is not pro-duced, the questioner may pursue it. However, sometimes it is not the absence of an answer thatis at issue but whether that answer is deemed adequate. Broadcast interactions (e.g., news inter-views) are a perspicuous environment for investigating sequences in which responses to questionsare provided but not always treated as answers. These interactions involve talk characterized byformal speech-exchange systems in which the activities of asking and answering questions arepreallocated to the roles of Interviewer (IR) and Interviewee (IE) respectively.1 News interviews

This study was initially developed during a visit to The Center for Language, Interaction and Culture at UCLA in2009–2010 (made possible through a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, Ref. 752-2009-2062), in which the data and earlyversions were presented at various occasions and where I received valuable commentary. I am particularly grateful toKaren Bradley, Susan Ehrlich, John Heritage, Federico Rossano, Jack Sidnell, and Matylda Weidner for many helpfuldiscussions; to Charles Antaki and three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on the manuscript; andespecially to Steve Clayman for his generous support and constructive feedback throughout. They are not responsible,however, for what I have made of their comments and suggestions.

Correspondence should be sent to Tanya Romaniuk, Department of Communication, Portland State University,University Center Building, 520 SW Harrison Street, Suite 440, Portland, OR 97201. E-mail: [email protected]

1In different forms of broadcast journalism, the role of questioner can be, in Goffman’s (1981) terms, animated ifnot authored by other participants (e.g., journalists, panelists, audience members). However, questioners are restricted toonly ask the question and therefore do not normatively occupy the third position in question-answer sequences, which isrestricted solely to the IR. Although there are some important differences between news interviews and political debates,these do not have a significant impact on the data presented here. Since examples are drawn from both settings, interviewerincludes the interactional role common in political debates, namely moderator.

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PURSUING ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 145

and political debates with interview-style formats, in particular, are environments in which pub-lic figures are often being tested, and where they frequently produce less than straightforwardresponses in the face of adversarial questioning (Clayman, 2001). While journalists cannot forcethe form a public figure’s response will take, they do have practices to try and secure directanswers to their questions. This article focuses on one of these practices, namely, pursuing ananswer.

THE EVASIVE POLITICIAN

There is a widely held belief—at least in the West—that politicians often produce evasiveresponses under questioning from members of the news media. Indeed, it is a notion that getsreported on and reproduced by the news media when politicians actually resist, subvert, orsidestep the constraints of hostile questioning. It is also something that members of the publicovertly discuss and debate. As just one example, during the first-ever YouTube debate sanctionedby the Democratic National Committee during the U.S. Democratic Presidential primary cam-paign in 2007, a citizen’s introductory remarks drew attention to this belief that politicians arenotorious for not answering questions. Specifically, he issued a “challenge” to the candidates to“do something revolutionary” and “actually answer the questions . . . posed to [them]” (Excerpt1, line 6; emphasis added).

(1) [CNN/YouTube Debate, 2007Jul23] Introduction

YT: Citizen of Portland via YouTube video

1 YT: Welcome to my home candidates, my name is Chris I live in2 Portland Oregon. And I have ah more of a: request er should3 I say challenge versus a question. .hh I’m wondering since4 this is such a: revolutionary debate that if you as politicians5 can do something (.) <revolutionary> .h and that is to:6 actually answer the questions that are posed to you tonight.7 versus beating around thuh (.) <bush,> so to speak .hh that8 would be wonderful [. . .]

CNN’s decision to open a candidates’ debate with such remarks—and to do so using an “ordi-nary” citizen as opposed to a professional journalist—not only topicalizes the evasiveness ofpoliticians as a relevant issue, it also draws attention to this issue for both the participating can-didates and the audience-at-large. In this way, the candidates are issued a public warning to stayon the agenda, and the dominant perception of their behavior as evasive is exposed, rearticulated,and thereby reinforced.

This kind of explicit orientation to the public perception of politicians’ evasiveness points toan underlying series of dilemmas that broadcast interactions present for both politicians and jour-nalists. From the audience’s perspective, viewers want politicians to answer the questions thatare posed to them. Journalists, as interviewers, are systematically oriented to the importance ofacting on the public’s behalf by asking challenging questions that provide them with relevant,timely information on issues of public concern or interest. Previous research has shown how IRsemploy a range of questioning practices in acting on behalf of the listening audience in ways that

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establish both topical and action agendas for politicians’ responses and that also provide the con-text for their evaluation (e.g., Clayman, 2002; Heritage, 1985). From the politicians’ perspective,their participation in news interviews and debates constitute important public appearances thatcan have a significant impact on their political careers. Under the media microscope, theirperformance in these interactions is scrutinized both in the interactions themselves and in sub-sequent coverage in various media outlets (Clayman, 1990, 2006). Indeed, they can be judgednegatively if they fail to provide satisfactory, informative answers or do not adequately andconsistently represent or defend their positions, policies, etc. Given the adversarial nature ofcontemporary news interviews, politicians as interviewees thus face a dilemma (Clayman, 2001):They want to be seen as cooperative and not evasive but they do not want their reputations tobe damaged, for example, by going “on record” in ways that can be detrimental to their pub-lic image. Previous research has investigated how IEs attempt to deal with this dilemma bydescribing some of the practices they may employ in resisting the possible negative outcomesof challenging questions (e.g., Ekström, 2009; Harris, 1991).

Just as IEs face a dilemma, journalists do as well. In asking questions, they work to strike a bal-ance between the competing journalistic norms of impartiality and adversarialness. As Heritage(2003, p. 57) writes:

On the one hand, IRs are expected to be impartial, objective, unbiased, and disinterested in theirquestioning of public figures. They are expected to have respect for the facts and the perspectivesthat interviewees (IEs) communicate, and to work to bring these into the public domain. On the otherhand, IRs also subscribe to a norm of adversarialness. They should actively challenge their sources,rather than being simply mouthpieces or ciphers for them. This second norm is one that pushes IRsnot to let the interview be a kind of platform or soapbox from which public figures can get away withtheir own spin on events.

Thus, journalists want politicians to provide direct answers to specific questions but at thesame time want to appear fair and impartial in their questioning. If they insist too much, are toodirect or aggressive in seeking answers (or, by contrast, too “soft”), then they risk compromisingtheir neutrality and can be judged negatively by the viewing public (e.g., Clayman & Whalen,1988/1989). This tension between impartiality and adversarialness bears on the design of theaction following an inadequate response. Considering what options are available to journalistsin such environments first requires a brief overview of some relevant issues regarding sequenceorganization and its norms.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

When we talk about adjacency-pair-based sequences, we say that a sequence-initiating actionor first pair-part, such as asking a question, makes relevant a responsive action or second pair-part, such as an answer. For question-answer sequences, however, it is not the case that justany responsive action will do, rather one that is fitted to the particular constraints establishedby the question’s design. Questions are formulated in ways that provide constraints not only onthe action their recipient should produce next, but also on the form that action should take. So,for example, polar questions establish the relevance of a “yes” or “no” in response (Raymond,2003), alternative-choice questions (e.g., are you or are you not . . . ?), the relevance of one ofthe alternatives provided, and specifying wh-questions (Fox & Thompson, 2010), the relevanceof the type of information specified by the question (e.g., the question word when makes relevant

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some reference to time in response). Most of the time, at least in ordinary conversation, questionrecipients abide by these constraints and provide what Raymond calls a “type-conforming”response—an answer that abides by the question’s constraints and which therefore accepts theterms and presuppositions embodied in it. Significantly, Raymond argues that when speakersproduce nonconforming responses, they convey some form of misalignment from the sequence-initiating action (i.e., a degree of resistance to the question or some aspect of it). Stivers andHayashi (2010) have built on Raymond’s discussion of nonconforming responses and furtherspecified what aspects of a polar question a recipient may resist. In describing what they call“transformative answers,” they say that “question recipients (dis)confirm a somewhat differentquestion than was originally posed,” and, through the design of the (dis)confirmation, recipientsretroactively and implicitly alter either the question’s terms (“term-transforming answers”), or itsagenda (“agenda-transforming answers,” Stivers & Hayashi, 2010, p. 2). There are a number ofstudies of both ordinary conversation (e.g., Heinemann, 2009; Raymond, 2003) and various insti-tutional settings (e.g., Ehrlich & Sidnell, 2006; Stivers & Heritage, 2001) that describe a rangeof practices and resources available to question recipients for transforming responses by resistingthe constraints that questions impose on them. In ordinary conversation, such transformationsare rarely brought to the surface, but in institutional contexts such as broadcast interactions,where politicians are under close scrutiny, third-position actions topicalizing the inadequacy of aresponse are commonplace. This article investigates what practices are available to journalists inattempting to deal with politicians’ inadequate responses.

PURSUING AN ANSWER

Over the course of any broadcast interaction, IRs are expected to gauge the adequacy of eachsuccessive IE response in order to decide whether to initiate a new topic or to ask some form of“supplementary” or follow-up question (Greatbatch, 1986a, 1986b). Regarding follow-up ques-tions, Greatbatch (1986b) outlined three types that journalists can initiate in third position, eachof which addresses different contingencies of the interviewee’s response to the initial question:

1. Probes: questions that seek supportive details regarding some aspect of the IE’s response;2. Counters: questions that are heard as challenging or undermining the IE’s response in

some way; and3. Pursuits: questions that topicalize an IE’s (c)overt refusal to answer the IR’s prior

question and make that the focus of the IE’s next turn.

Now there is another related but distinct use of “pursuit” that has been the subject of much con-versation analytic research. A great deal of this work addresses the realization of question-answersequences, and specifically, the ways in which participants can (both verbally and visually) pur-sue a response when it is noticeably absent (e.g., Bolden, Mandelbaum, & Wilkinson, 2012;Jefferson, 1981; Peräkylä & Ruusuvuori, 2012; Pomerantz, 1984; Stivers & Rossano, 2010).Consider the following exchange:

(2) [TW:M:38] (Atkinson & Drew, 1979: 52; cited in Heritage, 1984: 248)

1 Child: Have to cut the:se Mummy.2 (1.3)

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3 Won’t we Mummy.4 (1.5)5 Won’t we.6 Mother: Yes.

Following an initial confirmation-seeking question that fails to elicit a response (lines 1–2),the child pursues it in truncated forms (lines 3 & 5), which results in the mother acknowledg-ing the normative requirement to respond by answering “yes” (line 6). A questioner’s renewalof an initial question, then, is evidence of sequence organization as a social norm, and notanswering a question violates that norm and is thus an accountable matter. This kind of pur-suit, however—pursuing a response—is not the focus of this article. Rather, the focus is on whathappens following responses that are deemed inadequate or insufficient: in other words, on howjournalists pursue answers (i.e., responses that are fitted to the topical and/or action agenda setby the question).

What do pursuits look like and how do they operate in broadcast interactions? Since previousresearch has not investigated how pursuits of answers are designed and what they accomplishinteractionally, this article provides an overview of their interactional organization. Specifically,it addresses the following three questions:2

1. How do IRs design their questions to be recognizable as pursuits, as opposed to othertypes of (follow-up) questions?

2. What elements of a pursuit’s design indicate how and why an IE response is deemedinadequate or unsatisfactory? In what ways are they designed to block further resistance?

3. What aspects of their design convey their principal interactional characteristics (i.e.,warrantability and accountability)?

DATA AND METHOD

The following analysis is based on a collection of 70 question-answer sequences in which jour-nalists pursue an initial question at least once. Data are drawn from a wide range of broadcastnews interviews and political debates of the “accountability” type (Montgomery, 2008) over thepast 25 years, primarily broadcast on U.S. and British television, and frequently involving polit-ical candidates during election campaigns. Indeed, a significant number of examples come fromnews interviews and political debates from the 2007–2008 U.S. Democratic primaries and the2008 U.S. Presidential election. In accordance with the principles of conversation analysis, thefindings reported here are based on a comprehensive analysis of all the cases in the collection.

DOING PURSUING

Regarding a pursuit’s design, one principal issue concerns how to ask a question in such a wayas to make it clear that it is not a new question but in fact pursuit of a previous question. There

2These are not the only possible dimensions to investigate. Indeed, one significant dimension not examined in greatdetail here is the prospective consequences of pursuits—that is, how pursuits are taken up by IEs in their subsequentresponses and what kinds of responses they generate. This issue, among others, remains to be explored in another article.

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are systematic features that distinguish pursuits from other follow-up questions (such as probesor counters).3 Minimally, pursuing an answer involves (a) suspending progressivity (i.e., the IRhalts forward trajectory of the sequence by offering the IE an additional opportunity to respond);(b) renewing the initial question in some form; and (c) sustaining both the topical and actionagenda of the initial question (i.e., the IR does not engage in any topical or agenda shift). Asidefrom including some expansion or contraction of an initial question, pursuits may be initiatedwith varying degrees of explicitness. Pursuits are most commonly formulated in ways that marka relationship to the initial question explicitly, but there is in fact a range of design features thataccomplish this.

Explicitly Referencing the Initial Question

In the most explicit variant, a journalist’s pursuit formulates an unequivocal relationship to theprior question. In Excerpt (3), the IR, Wolf Blitzer, pursues an answer from Senator Clinton toa yes/no interrogative that depicts Clinton as having cast an uninformed, and by implication,irresponsible vote to invade Iraq.

(3) [#12 CNN Debate, 2007Jun3] Authorizing war

IR: Wolf Blitzer; IE: Hillary Rodham Clinton

1 IR: Senator Clinton. (.) Do you: regret. (.) auth-voting to2 authorize thuh president to u:se force (.) against Saddam3 Hussein in Iraq .h without actually (.) re:ading.4 thuh national intelligence estimate=thuh classified document,5 .h laying out thuh best US intelligence, .h at that time,6 IE: Wolf I was thoroughly briefed. I knew all the: arguments . . .

((23 lines of response omitted from transcript))30 IR:→ Let=me jus’ be precis:e. (.) ‘cause >thuh question w’s=31 → =d’ya< regret not reading thuh national intelligence .h estimate.32 IE: I feel like I was totally briefed . . .

For Clinton to answer Blitzer’s question straightforwardly (i.e., by saying “yes” or “no”), shewould confirm the truth of the presupposition embedded within the question, thereby acknowl-edging that her vote was misguided. Instead, Clinton’s response beginning at line 6 disalignswith the question’s action agenda and attempts to undercut the force of this negative presuppo-sition by focusing on the information she already had. Notably, this response is also prefacedwith an address term (“Wolf”), which frequently occurs in the environment of such noncon-forming responses (Clayman, 2010a). Despite Clinton’s rather lengthy account of her extensiveknowledge prior to the vote (not shown), Blitzer nevertheless pursues the question in a mannerthat explicitly attends to the fact that he needs to be “precise” since she has failed to provide aresponse (line 30). Specifically, the pursuit (lines 30–32) is issued in such a way as to explicitlyreference the initial question, thereby displaying the inadequacy of her response and highlightingher resistance to the question’s design.

3Recent studies have addressed other types of follow-up questions in broadcast talk, such as those akin to Greatbatch’s“counters” (e.g., Rendle-Short, 2007), and in other genres of broadcast interactions—for example, political pressconferences (e.g., Eriksson, 2011).

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Verbatim Repeats

Another way that journalists mark their follow-up as a pursuit is to produce a verbatim repeat ofthe initial question. Excerpt (4) is taken from an interview between a British journalist, JeremyPaxman, and then-candidate for the Conservative Party leadership, Michael Howard.4 In the seg-ment reproduced in Excerpt (4), Howard is asked whether he had threatened to overrule DerekLewis (Director General of Prisons) if Lewis did not fire a prison official. It is important to pointout that Howard had previously testified that he did not have any involvement in this situationdespite several authoritative sources claims to the contrary. Thus, for Howard to answer “no”would directly contradict those other sources, but a “yes” would show Howard to have been pre-viously misleading. And so it is in this context that Paxman pursues a “straight yes or no” answer,reissuing essentially the same question “Did you threaten to overrule him (Mister Howard)” inline 1 and then again in lines 6–7 (Paxman’s use of emphatic speech in delivering the question atline 3 will be discussed further on).

(4) [#26 BBC Newsnight, 1997May13 (Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 256)] Derek Lewis

IR: Jeremy Paxman; IE: Michael Howard

1 IR: → Did you threaten to overrule him.2 IE: I did not overrule Der[ek (Lewis).3 IR: [Did you threaten to overrule4 h[im.5 IE: [I took advice (.) on what I could or could not d[o::6 IR: → [Did you7 → threaten to overrule him Mister Howard.

Another common way journalists formulate a follow-up question as a pursuit is to add a con-trastive marker, such as but or though, in addition to reissuing the question verbatim. Thesemarkers establish a contrastive relationship with the previous response, which indicates some-thing problematic and draws attention to the fact that pursuit is being done.5 In Excerpt (5), theIE’s avoidance of a straightforward “yes” or “no” answer to the question of whether he “quitelikes” Harold Wilson licenses the IR to renew it, each time prefacing his pursuit with “but.”6 Bothtimes the “but”-preface establishes a contrast between the IE’s response and what the questionseeks, and together with the repetition of the IR’s original question, this contrastive device clearlymarks the IE’s responses as resistant and thus as inadequate.

4This is an exceptional example of pursuing an answer because Paxman reissues the question over 13 times. Theentire transcript it too long to reproduce here, but see Clayman and Heritage (2002, p. 256) for a full version.

5While IRs frequently preface pursuits with but there are, of course, other possibilities. Both but- and so-prefacedpursuits are of equal frequency in the collection, accounting for approximately one quarter of the data each, and well-prefaced utterances also occur, but with less frequency. The most common way to initiate pursuit is offering some formof explicit commentary that highlights the fact that the IR is reissuing the question (e.g., “To the question of . . . ”) beforeproceeding to do so.

6In the following examples that appear in a condensed format, the IE’s answering turns have been omitted and thetranscription simplified, where appropriate, in order to highlight the particular design features of the pursuit and theirrelationship to the initial question.

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(5) [#16 BBC Omnibus, Date Unknown (Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 198)]

IR: David Frost; IE: Edward Heath

Initial Question: Do you quite like him?First Pursuit: <But do you like> him?Second Pursuit: But do y’like him.

A less-frequent device that keys a follow-up question as a pursuit is the use of though, which,like the conjunction but, establishes a similar contrastive relationship with the previous response.In turn- or TCU-final position, it can also be heard as challenging what was just said. In Extract(6), IR Katie Couric poses an open-ended question about Sarah Palin’s position on global warm-ing (“What’s your position . . . ?”), but then issues a narrower yes/no interrogative framed as analternative (i.e., whether she believes it is man-made or not).

(6) [#33 CBS Evening News, 2008Sep30]

IR: Katie Couric; IE: Sarah Palin

Initial Question: What’s your position on global warming.==Do you believe it’s manmade or not.

Pursuit: Is it manmade though, in your view?

Palin’s avoidance of the question’s action agenda (i.e., she does not provide a “yes” or “no”response) prompts Couric to renew it in a way that selects among the alternatives (“is it man-made”) offering up the proposition to be agreed or disagreed with, while the “though” registersthat the question was responded to but not answered.

Indexically Linked Pursuits

Sometimes, however, an IR may not be explicit about engaging in pursuit, but may neverthelessaccomplish pursuit by reissuing the initial question in a way that retains an indexical relationshipwith it. In the following Extracts (7–9), the pursuits are not explicitly oriented to as follow-upsbecause they do not offer any explicit commentary that treats the IE’s response as inadequate.Instead, the initial questions are renewed in truncated forms that retain some form of indexicalrelationship with them.

(7) [#2 CNN Debate, 2007Jun3: Blitzer-Dodd]

Initial Question: Are the oil companies the big oil companiesengaged in price gouging of the American consumer.

Pursuit: But do you believe they are? Do you believe they are?

(8) [#10 CNN/YouTube Debate, 2007Jul23: Anderson-Kucinich]

Initial Question: Would you work for the minimum wage as President?Pursuit: So would you work for it?

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(9) [#48 ABC This Week, 1996Feb18: Donaldson-Buchanan]

Initial Question: Do you favor the teaching of creationism in public schools?Pursuit: Is that a yes?

In Extract (7), the reformulated pursuit (“but do you believe they are?”) is indexically tiedto the initial question, as the anaphoric pronoun “they” refers to the initial question’s subject(“thuh (big) oil companies”), and the copula verb “are” refers to the initial question’s predicate(“engaged in price gouging of the: American consumer”). Similarly, in Extract (8), the anaphoricpronoun “it” refers to a component of the initial question, though in this case it is the constituentnoun-phrase (“the minimum wage”). A somewhat more complex example is Extract (9), wherethe formulation of the pursuit indexes both a relationship with the initial question and the IE’sprevious response. In this instance, the demonstrative pronoun “that” indexes the IE’s previousresponse, and the inference-marked declarative (“is that a yes?”) renews the relevance of a “yes”or “no” response while simultaneously indicating that such a response was initially sought thoughnot provided. In order for these pursuits to be recognized as such, the listening audience needsto recall what the previous question was. Accordingly, the use of indexical references, such asanaphoric pronouns, provide a kind of interactional cue that helps indicate that what is beingasked now is linked to what was asked before.

Implicitly Formulated Pursuits

Of course, it is also possible to pursue an answer without providing any explicit commentaryand also without formulating it in such a way as to be indexically tied to the prior question.In such cases, which are the most infrequent, the way the question is reissued leaves its status asa pursuit implicit (i.e., members of the listening/viewing audience have to remember what theinitial question was in order to hear the reissuing of the question as a pursuit).7 This is the case inExtract (10).

(10) [#39 CNN The Situation Room, 2008Oct2] Social security

IR: Wolf Blitzer; IE: John McCain

1 IR: What about increasing thee retirement [age from six-sixty five.2 IE: [I am going in that I3 won’t-I will have-th-uh:: things on thuh table we will negotiate . . .

((6 lines of response omitted from transcript))10 A:nd- and-and, so .hh for me: to sa:y: (.) anything,11 but I’m gonna do: what I saw two great leaders=Tip O’Neill12 and Ronald Reagan do¿ it- it’s just foo:l[ishness.13 IR: → [So raising thuh14 → retirement [age-15 IE: [Thuh Democrats-thuh Democrats insist . . .

7While such information may seem transparent to the analyst when glancing at a transcript of the interaction, it is notnecessarily easily recalled by audience members, who often watch/listen to the talk as it unfolds in real time. After all,IEs are capable of producing rather lengthy multiunit responses before the pursuit is initiated.

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((10 lines of response omitted from transcript))26 But I::’ll get a result, and we will save Social Security.27 IR: → And how do you feel about raising thuh retirement age.28 IE: I feel very strongly that I will sit down with thuh Democrats . . .

Prior to where this excerpt begins, the IR, Wolf Blitzer, asked John McCain whether he is opento permitting an increase on the current cap for the payroll tax, which sets the stage for his “whatabout”-prefaced interrogative8 (on these types of questions, see Roth & Olsher, 1997) regardingan increase to the retirement age at line 1. Blitzer abandons his first attempt to pursue this initialquestion (lines 13–14) after McCain continues to talk through its initiation (line 15), but followsup with a pursuit brought through to completion later on (line 27). Both the “so”- and “and”-prefaces (lines 13 and 27) certainly contribute to these questions’ implicit status as pursuits. Thatis, when prefaced by and, for example, the question is presented as an addition to what has beenasked previously, rather than a reformulation of it. Given that the pursuit at line 27 is issued inthis way, it is only recognizable as a follow-up of the initial question if participants recall whatthe initial question was (line 1).

TIGHTENING THE REIGNS

So far we have considered some of the design features that characterize pursuits and how theyencode information that conveys their recognizability as such. A second dimension concerningthe design of pursuits has to do with how they are formulated in ways that attempt to reign in anIE’s resistant response. Although IE responses are not the focus of this analysis, it is worth firsttaking a moment to illustrate how a pursuit’s design can convey precisely what is being treated asproblematic with an IE’s response. In addition to highlighting what is problematic, pursuits alsoattempt to block further resistance by narrowing the question’s agenda. The pursuits illustratedin Extracts (11)–(15) offer representative cases of some of the ways in which this narrowing canbe accomplished.

Compare the design of the initial question (Q) and the pursuit (P) in Extract (11), with someof the IE’s response shown (A).

(11) [#2, CNN Debate, 2007Jun03: Blitzer-Dodd] Gas prices

Q: Gas prices are at record high levels, granite Staters arefrustrated, Ame:ricans are frustrated.

→ What would you do to reduce gas prices.A: Well this is a ma:jor crisis issue [. . .] I introduced a pla:n

here that would requi:re (.) by thuh year 2017 fifty miles pergallon sta:ndard f’r our automobiles. [. . .] We oughta do itim<mediately=in my view. a:nd a carbon tax in my view [. . .]

P: → >Thank you Senator=but thuh question was,< what wouldju→ do right now .h to reduc:e <(.) thuh price (.) of ga:soline>.

8Interestingly, Roth and Olsher (1997) find that, in their collection of what about-prefaced interrogatives, those thatare but-prefaced (i.e., but + what about + [nominal]) “systematically, and without exception, engage in the activity ofpursuing a response” (p. 11).

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The way in which the IR’s pursuit of the initial question, “What would you do to reduce gasprices?” is reformulated conveys precisely why the IE’s response has been treated as inadequate.The additional lexical material “right now,” the emphasis on “reduc:e” and the slowing downof speech toward the end of the question combine to display the IR’s understanding of what isproblematic about the previous talk. Specifically, the content of the IE’s response focused onfuture possibilities as opposed to here-and-now solutions. Thus, the IR’s addition of “right now”draws attention to the fact that the IE has not adequately addressed this key component of thequestion. Moreover, the IR’s emphasis on “reduc:e” implies that the IE’s suggestions have alsonot addressed the issue of reduction. Indeed, the last item in the IE’s suggested list of proposalswas “immediately” initiating “a carbon tax,” and taxes, as we all know too well, translate intoincreases rather than reductions.

Even in the case of verbatim repeats of an initial question, pursuits may accomplish the task ofhighlighting the problematic nature of an IE’s response and attempting to block further resistance.Returning to the Paxman-Howard example (reproduced as Extract 12), it was suggested thatPaxman pursued a response from Howard by renewing the initial question (“Did you threatento overrule him”; line 1) in exactly the same way (lines 6–7). However, Paxman also initiates twoother pursuits in this sequence that repeat the initial question verbatim (lines 3–4, 10; arrowed)but are in fact articulated differently than the ones at lines 1 and 6–7.

(12) [#26 BBC Newsnight, 1997May13 (Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 256)] Derek Lewis

IR: Jeremy Paxman; IE: Michael Howard

1 IR: Did you threaten to overrule him.2 IE: I did not overrule Der[ek (Lewis).3 IR: → [Did you threaten to overrule4 → h[im.5 IE: [I took advice (.) on what I could or could not d[o::6 IR: [Did you7 threat[en to overrule him Mister Howard.8 IE: [and I acted scrupulously in accordance with that advice=9 =I did not overrule D[erek Lewis

10 IR: → [Did you threaten to overrule him.

When Paxman begins to pursue a “yes” or “no” from Howard in line 3, he emphasizes thefirst syllable of the word “threaten,” which seeks to disallow Howard’s previous resistant maneu-vering (i.e., that he did not overrule Derek Lewis) by highlighting that his question is about theway Howard went about the matter rather than what the outcome may have been. Indeed, repeat-ing the same question but using emphatic stress, as Paxman does in lines 3–4 and in line 10, isa nonlexicalized way of producing contrastive devices (e.g., but, though) illustrated previously.In particular, contrastive stress serves to highlight what is being treated as problematic about theprior response while calling attention to the fact that the IE failed to answer. Through a combi-nation of both lexical and prosodic features, then, pursuits reformulate the question in ways thatreveal precisely what components of the IR response are being treated as problematic. In doingso, the pursuit tightens the reigns on the IE’s subsequent response since it accomplishes a moreprecise renewal of the initial question that not only highlights an IE’s evasiveness but also seeksto block further resistance.

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Another way in which a pursuit’s design can reign in an IE’s resistant response involvesnarrowing the scope of the question. Narrowing the question’s scope can also be accomplishedin a number of ways, depending on the grammatical format of the initial question and what com-ponents of that question are unaddressed in the IE’s response. For example, one component of acompound question (i.e., a question that has two question components) can be pursued if the IE’sresponse only addresses one of them, as exemplified in Extract (13).

(13) [#7 CNN Debate, 2007Jun03: Blitzer-Kucinich] Rebuilding military9

Q: 1→ My question i::s¿ what is your vision on ending major1→ m’litary operations=2→ =and how do you: plan on rebuilding the milita:ry after:2→ such many years of conflict.

A: [. . .] This country has to: (.) end its (.) occupation of Iraq.(0.5) and as I mentioned earlier. (0.4) thuh Congress thuhDemocratic Congress, has a: very serious responsibility==in this regard_ (.) We should simply. (.) not provide anybill at a:ll [. . .]

P: 2→ But (.) th-her question was specifically, wha:t would you2→ do to <re:build> (.) thuh military which seems to be pretty2→ stretched .h right now: what-d’ya have a plan.

Here, the first component of this compound question (arrowed 1) asks Kucinich about hisvision for ending major military operations in Iraq, while the second (arrowed 2) asks abouthis plans for rebuilding the military. Kucinich offers a lengthy response that addresses the firstquestion component, but not the second. As Clayman (2010b) points out, IEs do not necessarilyanswer each component of a compound question, but there is always a risk of being pursued ifthey do not. And this is precisely what the IR does in this case. That is, he pursues the secondcomponent of the question as that which the audience member “specifically” sought an answerto and subsequently transforms it. Specifically, the IR narrows the question’s action agenda bytransforming what was initially a rather open-ended wh-question (“What would you do . . . ?”)to a more focused question (“D’ya have a plan”), thereby calling for a “yes” or “no” in response.Indeed, another means by which the scope of an initial question can be narrowed is to transformthe grammatical format of the initial question, as the IR did in this case.

A related type of narrowing of a question’s agenda is accomplished in Extract (14). Thisexample comes from an interview between Paxman and a Serbian commander suspected of warcrimes in the Bosnian conflict of the early 1990s. Here, Paxman presses the IE, Dragoslav Bokan,about whether he will make himself “available” to the United Nations personnel responsible forinvestigating war crimes (lines 1–2).

(14) [#20 BBC Newsnight, 1993Nov2] UN investigation

IR: Jeremy Paxman; IE: Dragoslav Bokan

1 IR: . . . Mister Bokan, are you prepared to make yourself

9In this example from a multiparty candidates’ debate, an audience member asks the initial question, and the IRallocates it to one of the candidates, Dennis Kucinich, on the grounds that he had been outspoken on issues related to theIraq war.

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2 available to UN investigators?3 (.)4 IE: .hhhh Ah: first of all: I: just want to say that it’s you know5 very strange you know, to hear all those accuses.=And ah:6 .hhh ah: it’s v(h)ery strange to be in the (passive) role:: o:f7 hearing, an:d ah .hh ah not to have an opportunity you know8 to:: say anything: uh .hhh ah about yourself or: you know9 your: ah goals. in war .hh an:d [ah:10 IR: [I’m not interested in your11 goals Mister Bokan.=The question wa:s are you prepared12 to make yourself avai:lable to UN investigators.13 IE: .hhh You know uh- you know: the answer, you know: uh14 maybe better than ah m:yself. .hhh Because: o::f >you know15 from the beginning of war,< .hhh I: have just uh one goal16 an:d that’s t’defend you know my people: from the (lynch)=17 IR: →=Is that a yes or n:o?18 (0.5)19 IE: Uh: Is it a cour:t (.) or: a: interview . . .

Following a first attempt by Paxman to pursue the initial question (which will be discussedfurther), in lines 13–16 Bokan implicitly challenges him on posing such a question in the firstplace. Paxman, however, tightens the reigns on Bokan by interjecting with another pursuit beforehe has been given a chance to come to (projectable) completion (line 17). This time, the pursuitis reformulated as a polar alternative question (“Is that a yes or n:o?”). By transforming the ques-tion format from one in which the available options for response were embedded (i.e., a yes/nointerrogative makes relevant a “yes” or “no” answer) to one that explicitly states what the avail-able options are, Paxman not only highlights the IE’s previous evasiveness but also increases theinteractional pressure for a “yes” or “no” answer. As Roth (1998) has noted, the or construction ofalternative questions, like the one Paxman issues here, presupposes the correctness of one of thecandidate answers. In this way, pursuits that narrow the question’s agenda to an alternative choiceformat sharpen the degree of constraint on what constitutes an appropriate answer by leaving it tothe IE to confirm one of the two options. And, the power of this more narrow formulation is thatif the IE fails to provide a “yes” or “no” (as the IE does at line 19: “Is it a court or a interview?”),it is left on display for the overhearing audience as avoided.

Extract (15) is illustrative of one additional way in which a pursuit’s design can narrow aninitial question’s agenda and thus tighten the reigns on an IE’s response, namely, by drawing outinferences implicit in it.10

(15) [#1 CNN/YouTube Debate, 2007Jul23] American troops

IR: Anderson Cooper; IE: Hillary Rodham Clinton

1 IR: Senator Clinton? (0.3) wo-d’you agree with uh Senator Biden,=2 =American troops should go tuh Darfur?3 (.)

10The IR’s first pursuit (lines 12–13) exemplifies a somewhat different transformation in the question’s design. Here,a yes/no interrogative is reissued as a what about-prefaced interrogative focusing on the question’s topical agenda.

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4 IE: I-I agre:e completely: that what we need tuh do is start acting5 instead of talking.=That means accelerating the: United Nations6 Peacekeeping forces along with the: African Union. [. . .]

((3 lines of response omitted from transcript))10 and finally it does mean a: nofly zone.=We can do it in a way11 .h that .h doesn’t endanger humanitarian re[lief.12 IR: [What about13 American troops on thuh ground.14 (.)15 IE: I think NATO has to be there with thuh no:-fly: zo:ne [. . .]

((3 lines of response omitted from transcript))19 IR: → =Just in thuh spirit of tryna get thee answer-=20 → =that means no: American ground troops¿21 (0.4)22 IE: American ground troops I don’t think belo:ng in Darfur at this time . . .

The pursuit initiated in lines 19–20 converts the IE’s transformative answer into an inference-marked negative declarative that favors confirmation (“That means no: American groundtroops¿”). In addition to establishing a narrower topical agenda, this question format also nomi-nates an answer (a dispreferred one, a “no”) and invites affiliation with it. This forces the IE intothe position of having to confirm or deny the inference made public through the IR’s pursuit, onethat the IE was clearly trying to avoid stating explicitly.

Thus far, we have seen that slight differences in the design of pursuits as compared to ini-tial questions can indicate what is problematic about an IE response, and can also attempt toreign in that response in ways that narrow the question’s agenda. All of this is done in the ser-vice of blocking further potential resistance. We have also considered to what extent pursuits aredesigned to be recognizable as such. Those that mark this relationship explicitly are the mostcommon, perhaps because they allow journalists to provide a warrant for asking a question again.Despite the fact that there is a range of formats journalists employ in pursuing an answer, they allhave in common the effect of holding the IE accountable for not answering; however, this is infact accomplished with varying degrees of directness. Both of these issues—warrantability andaccountability—are indeed key interactional characteristics of pursuits. And both become partic-ularly salient in the environment of an IR’s explicit sanctioning remarks, which often (though notnecessarily) coincide with the pursuit itself.

SANCTIONING INTERVIEWEE RESISTANCE

All journalists’ pursuits implicitly have sanctioning implications since any question’s renewaltreats the previous response as inadequate. In addition, however, there are cases in which journal-ists thematize that inadequacy. When journalists explicitly sanction an IE’s response as havingnot answered the question, they not only draw attention to the IE’s response as inadequate, butthey also provide a warrant for asking the question again. Perhaps not surprisingly, the mostcommon way in which journalists accomplish explicit sanctioning is by pursuing an answer bydirectly referencing the initial question (see Extract 3). Aside from such direct references butless frequently, journalists may produce some form of commentary on the inadequacy of the IE’s

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response. A particularly clear case of such commentary is exhibited in Extract (14), the relevantportion of which is reproduced as Extract (16). Recall that Paxman pursued a “yes” or “no”answer regarding whether Bokan would cooperate with (i.e., “make himself available to”) UNinvestigators of war crimes (lines 1–2).

(16) [#20 BBC Newsnight, 1993Nov2] UN investigation

IR: Jeremy Paxman; IE: Dragoslav Bokan

1 IR: [ . . .] Mister Bokan, are you prepared to make yourself2 available to UN investigators?3 (.)4 IE: .hhhh Ah: first of all: I: just want to say that it’s you know,5 very strange you know, to hear all those accuses.=And ah:6 .hhh ah: it’s v(h)ery strange to be in the (passive) role:: o:f7 hearing, an:d ah .hh ah not to have an opportunity you know8 to:: say anything: uh .hhh ah about yourself or: you know9 your: ah goals. in war .hh an:d [ah:

10 IR: → [ I’m not interested in your11 → goals Mister Bokan.=The question wa:s are you prepared12 → to make yourself avai:lable to UN investigators.

Rather than reply to Paxman’s initial yes/no interrogative, Bokan instead launches a complaintregarding his “passive” role in the interview and inability to discuss his “goals in war” (lines 4–9).Following the first hearably complete unit in his response, Paxman interjects (disregarding the factthat more talk was projected through the use of “first of all” at line 4, and the conjunction andfollowing the possibly complete unit at line 9). Notably, Paxman reuses part of Bokan’s divergentresponse to explicitly sanction his avoidance of the question and to steer the agenda back on track,“I’m not interested in your goals Mister Bokan” (lines 10–11). He then repeats the questionin exactly the same form after also explicitly referencing the initial question, which highlightsBokan’s resistance further (lines 11–12). These explicit remarks draw attention to Bokan’s failureto answer the question, and, at the same time, provide a warrant to the overhearing audience forrenewing the initial question again.

As is evident in the previous example, the most common place for such remarks to occuris before the pursuit itself (i.e., in turn-/unit-initial position). Extract (17) serves as anotherrepresentative case. Below, the IR, Chris Wallace, asks the IE, a spokesperson for presidentialcandidate Ross Perot, whether Perot is going to “get out and meet with voters” (line 4), but the IEoffers a lengthy response that only addresses Wallace’s prefatory remarks (i.e., Perot’s advertis-ing expenditures; lines 1–3). The IR’s next turn begins with explicit commentary that sanctionsthe IE’s response as deficient (“You gave a good answer.=you never answered my question,however”; lines 45–46) before reissuing a reformulated version of his initial question.

(17) [#21 ABC Nightline (Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 276–277)] Presidential Debate

IR: Chris Wallace; IE: Clay Mulford

1 IR: .hh Mister Mulfor:d ah r- your man Ross Perot is gonna

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2 spen:d at lea::st ten mill:ion dollars .hh in TV advertising3 .in the final two and a half weeks of this campaign., .hhh4 Is he actually gonna get out and- and meet with voters,5 campai:gn like the other candidates?6 IE: Yeh, well l-let’s: (.) talk about this: for a second.7 Ah- the- the other two: (.) candidates recei:ve over8 fifty five point two million dollars directly from the9 taxpay:ers.

((11 lines of response omitted from transcript))21 Usually, with the passage of ti:me independent candidates22 go down: in the polls:. .hh Since we have entered the race23 according to the polls, we’ve gone from seven to fifteen24 percent . . . And we think Perot is gonna win . . .

((20 lines response of transcript omitted))45 IR: → . . . You: you gave a good answer.=You never answered my46 → question, how:ever. .hh>.Part of thuh political process<47 is for candidates actually to get out and mee:t with voters.48 (0.3)>.Is he gonna do tha:t?<

Crucially, the IR’s pursuit is licensed by his explicit sanction of the IE having not provided ananswer; that is, he provides explicit commentary on the inadequacy of the response—which holdsthe IE accountable for not answering—and simultaneously projects the relevance of reissuing thequestion. Given that IEs do not often draw attention to the fact that they are not answering aquestion, it is up to the IR to recognize such covert tactics when they occur and expose the IE’snorm violation for the overhearing audience. This is precisely what is accomplished by explicitlysanctioning the IE’s response as inadequate or unsatisfactory, particularly when such remarksoccur adjacent to that response.

A DILEMMA FOR JOURNALISTS: THE DELICATE NATURE OF PURSUITS

People sometimes write to me after an interview and say, “Why didn’t you get [the interviewee]to answer the question?” about whatever it was. And I write back saying, “I asked the questionthree times. I don’t have a gun that I can bring out and say, either you answer this question or Ishoot. There’s nothing else I can do. And if you haven’t deduced from his failure to answer thesame question three times over that this is a question which for some reason he finds it inconvenient,difficult, impossible or to which he has no answer then there’s nothing more I can do for you.” (DavidDimbleby, BBC TV commentator)

Pointing a gun at someone is about as hostile and aggressive an action one can enact towardanother. As Dimbleby’s remarks indicate, one of the difficulties for IRs is that the only commu-nicative resources available for trying to get IEs to provide direct answers to specific questionsmay also come across as hostile and aggressive. This brings us back to the dilemma journalistsface in terms of holding politicians accountable through their use of probing questions whilestriking a balance between the norms of impartiality and adversarialness. Sequences involvingpursuits of answers are sites in which this delicate balancing act is played out interactionally.On the one hand, journalists apply pressure on recalcitrant IEs by engaging in pursuit. On the

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other hand, they exhibit cautiousness or provide just cause in exerting such pressure. Each ofthese issues will be addressed with respect to distributional evidence from the collection in turn.

Comparing the grammatical formats of initial questions and the pursuits that follow themprovides further insight into how the design of journalists’ pursuits can further exert pressureon IEs. Tables 1 and 2 report the distribution of the three categories of question formats for allinstances of both initial questions and first pursuits in the collection respectively.

As Table 1 shows, out of the 70 initial questions in the collection that are pursued at leastonce, yes/no questions account for two-thirds of the initial question formats (n = 46) while wh-questions (n = 24) account for one third.11 Table 2 indicates the format of the pursuit questionsthat followed those initial questions: Journalists engage in pursuit using a yes/no question format63% of the time, a wh-question format 23% of the time, and an alternative question format 14%of the time.

While Table 1 reports on formats of the initial question and Table 2 on formats of the pursuitquestion, Table 3 correlates the initial question and pursuit combinations.

At least three observations lend support to the argument that journalists’ pursuits can “tightenthe reigns” on IE response. First, in 38% of the cases, initial wh-questions are pursued with yes/noformatted questions, whereas only 4% of initial yes/no questions are pursued with a wh-format(n = 2).12 Since yes/no questions exert tighter constraints on response than wh-questions by mak-ing relevant a “yes” or “no”—and their design makes nonconforming or transformative responses

TABLE 1Distribution of Initial Question Formats

Question Format Percent (n)

Yes/no questions 66% (n = 46)Wh-questions 34% (n = 24)Alternative questions 0% (n = 0)Total questions 100% (n = 70)

TABLE 2Distribution of Pursuit Formats

Question Format Percent (n)

Yes/no questions 63% (n = 44)Wh-questions 23% (n = 16)Alternative questions 14% (n = 10)Total questions 100% (n = 70)

11This distribution is consistent with the pattern shown for ordinary conversation in English, namely, that yes/noquestions are the dominant question type (see Stivers, 2010).

12Interestingly, in both cases these wh-formats are also pursued subsequently with inference-marked declaratives thatestablish the relevance of an even more restricted response than the initial question called for (e.g., “Do you agree . . . ?”→ “What about . . . ?” → “That means . . . ?”; Extract 15).

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TABLE 3Correlation of Initial Question (Q) Formats and Pursuit (P) Formats

Initial Y/N Q → P Percent (n) Initial WH Q → P Percent (n)

Y/N → Y/N 76% (n = 35) WH → Y/N 38% (n = 9)Y/N → WH 4% (n = 2) WH → WH 58% (n = 14)Y/N → Alt 20% (n = 9) WH → Alt 4% (n = 1)Total questions 100% (n = 46) 100% (n = 24)

TABLE 4Distribution of Sequential Environments of Pursuit Initiation

Sequential Position of Pursuit Initiation Percent (n)

At TRP 74% (n = 52)Before TRP 17% (n = 12)Preemptively 9% (n = 6)Total questions 100% (n = 70)

easily detected—pursuing initial wh-questions with yes/no formats increases pressure on sub-sequent responses by limiting the range of relevant options. And, in the context of broadcastinteractions, such questions force IEs into the position of having to confirm or deny unfavorablepropositions and/or presuppositions embedded in their design (e.g., Extract 3: “Do you regret . . .

?”; Extract 4: “Did you threaten . . . ?”; Extract 14: “That means no . . . ?”). Second, in 20% of thecases, initial yes/no questions are pursued as alternative-choice questions. This shift representsanother way journalists “tighten the reigns” on IE responses since, as discussed previously, pur-suing with an alternative-choice format also constrains what constitutes an answer. Finally, onethird of both initial yes/no formatted questions (12/35) and wh-formatted ones (3/9) are pur-sued as inference-marked declarative questions (not shown). Pursuing with such a format allowsjournalists to exert pressure by nominating a particular answer to be confirmed and by invitingaffiliation with it (e.g., “so that’s a yes?”). This is particularly interesting because, in all 15 casesthat are pursued as inference-marked declaratives, the proposed answer is unfavorable from theperspective of the IE. This forces the IE into the position of having to confirm or deny the infer-ence made public through the IR’s pursuit, one that the IE was clearly trying to avoid statingexplicitly.

Exerting such pressure, however, is not without constraints. Indeed, pursuing an answer mayitself be an accountable action, contributing to the dilemma journalists face. There are at least twoways in which journalists appear to orient to pursuits as accountable actions. First, in consideringwhere pursuits are initiated relative to the IE’s response in progress, Table 4 shows that in thevast majority of cases (91% of the time), journalists wait until (projectable) completion of an IE’smulti-unit turn.13

13The different sequential environments include (a) at possible turn completion and therefore at a transition relevanceplace (TRP), (b) before a TRP but after a substantive response has been provided (i.e., the IE’s turn is either syntacticallyand/or intonationally complete but not pragmatically), or (c) preemptively (i.e., before the IE has completed a singleturn-constructional unit, or TCU).

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Although IRs do occasionally come in early (n = 6), in all of these cases initiation only occurswhen the IE’s TCU in progress reveals an overt divergence from the question’s agenda. Putsomewhat differently, journalists appear to orient to the possible negative consequences of pursu-ing preemptively (i.e., being perceived as “rude” or “disrespectful” for interrupting; see Clayman,1993) by avoiding such pursuits unless there is an explicit warrant for them. Second, just asjournalists locate a warrant for pursuit in the IE’s response, they also provide a license for ask-ing a question again in their own talk. Recall that journalists frequently formulate pursuits inways that explicitly reference the initial question and sometimes also preface their pursuits withremarks that explicitly sanction IE responses as inadequate. In so doing, they orient to the poten-tially aggressive nature of pursuits and shield themselves from accusations of hostility, politicalbias, or bullying.14 Overall, then, the fact that IRs often formulate pursuits in these ways suggeststhat they are treating a question’s renewal as an accountable matter.

Journalistic pursuits are no doubt shaped in ways that meet the basic institutional demands ofbroadcasters and their organizations (Clayman & Heritage, 2002). Given that IEs’ responses—through which their views and opinions are expressed—are at the heart of talk in broadcastinteractions, journalists are structurally positioned to elicit talk that is “on the record” (Hutchby,2006). As Greatbatch (1986b, p. 118) points out, IE’s covert forms of resistance constitute a seri-ous threat to the journalist’s status as a competent “report elicitor.” Accordingly, the ability todetect and expose such tactics via pursuit, and to do so in carefully selected ways, is a principalmeans by which journalists exercise professionalism and enact one aspect of their watchdog role.And all of this is done for the benefit of the overhearing audience. Because resistant responses,in particular, allow for audience members to draw inferences about why politicians may not beparticularly forthcoming (as Dimbleby also points out), pursuing answers in third position is oneof the central means by which journalists can hold IEs accountable to the public at large. Indeed,as Clayman and Heritage (2002, p. 235) suggest, “the interactional accountability of answeringquestions is the fundamental basis for the public accountability of public figures.”

CONCLUSION

In describing the flexibility and robustness of the organization of talk-in-interaction, Schegloff(2006, p. 77) asserts that “it had better be pretty reliable, and have ways of getting righted if besetby trouble.” Given that questions are designed to obtain not just responses but in fact specificanswers, the foregoing analysis of the design of pursuits shows that pursuits are an important“righting” mechanism for breaches of adjacency pair-based sequences, and specifically, the prob-lem of inadequate response. This problem is of particular significance in the context of broadcastinteractions, where journalists actively scrutinize politicians on behalf of the public through theiruse of questions (Clayman & Romaniuk, 2011). Even if journalists are not successful in achiev-ing an answer that is fitted to both the topical and action agenda set by their questions, pursuing

14This is especially true for instances where IEs have not overtly drawn attention to the fact that they are not supplyingan answer but instead engage in covert tactics to “appear” as though they are in fact answering (Greatbatch, 1986b). It isalso true in cases where IRs pursue the matter more than once. Notably, as is the case with other interactional phenomena(e.g., list construction; see Jefferson, 1991), IRs do not appear to offer more than three opportunities to answer (i.e., theydo not pursue more than twice); another important point raised in Dimbleby’s remarks.

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such an answer is nevertheless one organized practice that exposes the politician’s norm violationfor the overhearing audience. By engaging in pursuit, then, journalists enact a critical componentof their professional role as watchdog, by attempting to obtain clear, direct answers to specificquestions and by striving to get them “on the record” for the public at large.

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Documents

Pursuing Answers to Questions in Broadcast Journalism