Multiple choice questions from a reporter usually end badly when the newsmaker is duped into delivering an answer formulated by someone else, the reporter. But this scenario didn’t play out recently when President Obama fielded a multiple choice question from CNN’s Dan Lothian.
Lothian asked the President if GOP candidate support for waterboarding was: A) uninformed, B) out-of-touch, or C) irresponsible? The President essentially selected D) none of the above (a choice not offered) and explained why.
Answers A), B) and C) may have played out nicely in the reporter’s story, but the President, as any newsmaker should, made the story his own by answering the question in his own words – not the reporter’s.
Multiple choice questions can change your story.