What's With All The Stupid Questions?

My biggest source of frustration as a sports fan these days is the post-game press conference. It has gotten to the point where it is almost too painful to watch. I am not sure exactly when it happened, but it's pretty clear to me that today's sports beat reporters have completely lost the ability to ask good, thought-provoking questions. Instead, what we get is an unimaginative, half-hearted attempt to get their subjects talking with the hope that whatever comes out of their mouths will give them enough information to fill up a the necessary inches of column space. There doesn't appear to be any interest in finding a particular angle and coming up with a thoughtful question that can provide some greater insight into whatever game or event has just occurred. Today, I am going to look a little further into two of the more inane types of questions that beat reporters ask, discuss what makes them such a complete waste of time, and suggest a way to get some of these reporters back on track (at least from my perspective). Here we go:

Question #1: "Talk about  . . . "

The irony here is that this isn't even a question. It's more or less a command, even though some reporters will throw in a "Can you" at the beginning to make it a question. Either way, it lacks imagination. I guarantee if you listen to any post-game press conference, you will hear this at least two or three times. It has gotten so ubiquitous that Bryan Curtis from Grantland.com did a great story on it this past January. You can check it out by clicking on the link. Here are a few examples of what I mean:

1.) "Talk about that last drive." (Presumably, this was a drive that determined the game's outcome.)
2.) "Talk about your preparation for the game."
3) "Can you talk about the play of (insert player's name here) today?

When reporters go this route, they are basically saying, "I refuse to put any effort whatsoever into this part of  my job." And when they do go into "Talk about" mode, I start looking around for a sharp stick so I can poke myself in the eye. It's a much more preferable alternative to sitting and watching the rest of the press conference. Let's take the first question for example ("Talk about that last drive"). There was clearly something significant about the drive. Either the team scored to win the game or they failed to score and lost the game. Wouldn't it be great if the person being asked that question just came back with "Weren't you watching it?" It's the vagueness of the question that makes it so frustrating. Sometimes I wonder how players and coaches have the patience for it. No wonder Greg Popovich is one of my favorite coaches.  This man does not suffer fools lightly. When he gets asked a stupid question, he doesn't have any problem letting the reporter know it. Then people complain about him being so uncooperative when he is being interviewed. Hey, I have a suggestion. You want a better interview? Start asking better questions.

Question #2: " How big was  . . . ?"

As in " How big was this win?" or "How big was that play?"  This question is almost automatic at press conferences that follow a particularly important win or a key play that clearly either won or helped win a game.  I practically lose my mind every time I hear it. Just once, I would like for a player to answer, "Actually, I don't really think it was all that big. It didn't impact the game one bit. Next question, please." Look, I get that's it not the easiest thing to keep coming up with new, fresh questions, but this is pretty weak. Most reporters should be able to predict the answer to such a question, so there is no real need to ask it. In court, one of the key rules that lawyers follow is to never ask a witness a question on the stand unless they know the answer that they are going to get. The opposite should be true if you are a sports reporter. Never ask a question when you already know what the answer is likely to be.

What I am wondering is why have the quality of these questions sunk to such a new low? As a sports fan, they have no value to me at all because I am not getting any insight into the game that I wasn't aware of already. One possible answer is that some of these beat reporters don't want to get the players or coaches upset for fear of losing access to them. It's a reasonable concern, but that doesn't mean they have to completely forfeit their responsibilities as reporters. Besides, there are ways to ask a thought provoking or challenging question without sounding like a jerk.  It's their job to obtain compelling information in order to develop a story that holds the reader's interest. If their 'go-to" questions are the two mentioned above, maybe sports reporting isn't the best profession for them.

So how can these reporters stop putting us through such torture? Just like in any other profession, they need to prepare for their assignments better by doing the necessary research.  That would help them set up their questions when the time comes. Compared to thirty years ago, it takes far less time to get some good background on the events reporters are assigned to cover. The good ones can use this information effectively to create some questions that make players or coaches think about their answer. My feeling is that they would be so appreciative of getting a good question that they would make an extra effort to provide a decent answer.

Last week, Serena Williams' defeated Garbine Muguruza of Spain in the women's final at Wimbledon. It was her 6th title at the All England Club and her 21st grand slam title overall. For the second time in her career, Williams is in possession of the Australian, French, Wimbledon and U.S. Open trophies at the same time. Barring any serious injury, she is in a really good position to win the calendar grand slam if she can close the deal at the U.S. Open in late August. That hasn't been accomplished since Steffi Graf did it in 1988. I didn't see the press conference live following the match, so I pulled it up on YouTube. The clip was just over three minutes, so I doubt that it was the whole thing. Some of the questions were hard to hear, but from what I did pick up, they were pretty boring. The first one was "How does it feel to win the Serena Slam?" Williams' answer was fairly predictable: "It's a great feeling. . .  The moment is still setting in . . . etc., etc., etc." The rest of press conference wasn't much different. There were no "Talk about" or "How big" questions in the segment I watched. In fact, there were no questions specific to the final match at all.  They could have been asked at a different point in the press conference, but this was the only version I could find on YouTube, so there is no way to know how much they went into it.

Even going with the Serena Slam theme in this particular segment, there were so many more thought provoking questions that could have been asked.  If I was a reporter in the room, I would have gone in knowing that Serena Williams' career grand slam titles break down as follows: Australian Open - 6, French Open - 3, Wimbledon - 6 (which includes the title she just won), U.S. Open - 6. Secondly, her career record vs. Muguruza going into the final was 2-1. The Spaniard defeated Williams in the second round of the 2014 French Open, and lost to her in the early rounds of the 2013 and 2015 Australian Open.

Armed with this information, I would have come up with the following questions to ask. With any luck I might have gotten a chance to ask a follow up, and in the response, Williams may have wound up answering a couple that I didn't get an opportunity to ask.

First question: You've just won your fourth consecutive grand slam title. Which one of them was the most challenging? What were some of the factors that made it so challenging to win?

I would ask this question to see if Williams' answer lines up with her track record at the major tournaments. Her record at the French Open doesn't measure up to her outstanding performances in the other three. If she answers that the French was the toughest, it would be interesting to know why. Was it because of the surface? Or maybe it was the draw? Williams' was also battling the flu, so that could have been it as well. On the other hand, Williams could easily say that Wimbledon was the toughest. She was two points from losing in the third round against Britain's Heather Watson. Then she had to play her sister Venus in her very next match. That couldn't have been easy. The point is the answer to the question could go in a couple different directions, and that's a good thing.

Second question: Garbine Muruguza was able to win for the first time against you in last year's French Open, and she took you to three sets earlier this year at the Australian Open. Going into this match, was there a part of her game that you wanted to be especially ready to handle in order to come out on top today, or did you feel that you had a significant advantage, given that her strongest surface is clay? Did the match play out like you had envisioned, or did you make adjustments at any point that helped to close it out?

Like most Spaniards, Muruguza grew up playing on clay, which would explain her success against Williams in the 2014 French Open. Serena's wins have come on faster surfaces, but Muruguza did manage to win the first set against her at this year's Australian Open. It's tough to tell what this really means given that Williams has been a notoriously slow starter recently. That's why it would be interesting to get her take on how she approached this match. Even if she did feel that Muruguza had improved on the faster surfaces, did Williams think it would be enough of an improvement to make a difference on grass, which is arguably her best one? It would be worth looking into.


Those are just a couple of examples of how doing some homework can help reporters put together questions with a little more depth. The fact is a little research goes a long way. But when that doesn't happen, what we get are beat reporters who are either winging it or who have no idea of what goes into asking a decent question in the first place. The result is a press conference that is of no value whatsoever to watch. If I had my way, I'd make all of them take a class on how to ask good questions and have them re-certify every year. Maybe that way they won't be as prone to turning every post-game press conference into a journalistic train wreck.


Until next time . . .

Karl