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Sunday, August 15, 2010

Julian Bond

I got to see Julian Bond speak in the early seventies at what is now the University of North Texas in Denton, TX. After speaking he opened the floor up for questions but not before asking that folks avoid certain kinds of questions that are really little speeches in disguise. If memory serves he phrased it like this: “You know the kind of questions I mean. Those that begin with: isn’t it true that … or everyone knows that … or don’t all the experts agree. So if it is true and everyone knows it and all the experts agree, then why bring it up here?”
Posted by Unknown at 12:32 AM
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3 comments:

  1. TerryAugust 15, 2010 at 8:10 PM

    Damn funny. He'd heard that in various versions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. TomAugust 17, 2010 at 12:32 PM

    Yeah, I don’t like those premise based questions either, and Julian’s attempt to prevent them from being asked is understandable. Still I think it is a risky strategy.

    From years of advising/training media spokespersons I would never advise them to begin a Q/A session with “Don’t ask me that type of question”. It seems to me that all audiences would have a similar and negative reaction. Such as “Why not”, “Can’t you handle it”, or “Do you have something to hide?”

    How did it work (come across) for the Denton crowd?

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownAugust 17, 2010 at 3:12 PM

    As I recall folks appreciated the idea of having questions from the floor rather than speeches.

    ReplyDelete

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