Written by John Turner   

I happened to glance through the text of an interview that Greta Van Susteren conducted with Sarah Palin about the president’s state of the union message. One wouldn’t expect to find sharp thinking there, and, indeed, there was none on view. Still the interview could have been far more informative if Ms. Van Susteren had attempted to engage Ms. Palin in real conversation (leaving aside for the moment that Van Susteren is a Fox News employee and, therefore, not encouraged to conduct real conversations).

Ms. Palin, for example, said this: "Obviously government growth won't create any jobs, it's the private sector that can create the jobs."

At that point I would have asked her how she knew. She was repeating a Republican talking point, of course, and so wouldn’t have had an articulate answer. But the aim of an actual conversation is to draw out thought. So Van Susteren should have helped her along.

Van Susteren could have said, “Let’s look at two different positions so we can better explain to the public the point you’re making.”

Ms. Palin probably would have said okay.

Then Van Susteren could have continued: “On the one hand, we have a physician who works for the National Institutes of Health and who is doing research on molecular modeling in order to find out how to treat genetic disorders. On the other hand we have the owner of a small plant which manufactures frisbees. Let’s say, further, that both these men have an income of about $150,000. And they have houses, and children, and so they buy groceries, and gasoline, and all the various things that go to support life in modern America.”

At this point, Ms. Palin might look puzzled. So Ms. Van Susteren could proceed. “We would have to say they both have jobs, wouldn’t we?”

Palin probably would agree.

“They’re both using their salaries to contribute to the economy, aren’t they?”

Maybe another agreement.

“So why do we say that one is not helping to create jobs, whereas the other is? If the doctor goes to the store to buy some bananas, that helps the produce manager just as much as if the frisbee maker buys bananas, doesn’t it? The grocery store guy doesn’t know and doesn’t care what either of them does for a living, as long as he’s got the money to pay for the bananas.”

Ms. Palin’s response probably would not be a model of rationality. Nonetheless the public would have been given something to think about. And their grasp of Ms. Palin’s though processes would surely have been strengthened.

The question, “How do you know?” is so obvious that reporters must be avoiding it on purpose. They are fed assertions everyday that clearly are questionable. Yet seldom do they ask the obvious question -- how do you know? Why don’t they ask it?

The questions wouldn’t have to be put stridently. There would be no need for a show of aggression. The reporter or analyst could say merely that he, or she, wanted to help the public understand the speaker’s position.

In our public discourse, nothing would be more useful than for the population to be helped to distinguish between those who have actual thought behind what they say and those who are just repeating talking points they’ve been fed.

I’m beginning to suspect that mainstream journalists don’t wish to help the public to understand -- anything. If they did, it would be very easy to do it.

We know the common stance: all they’re after is ratings. That may well be true, but it would be good for us to be reminded, far more often than we are, that ratings are thought to flow towards ignorant shouting matches more than they do towards skillful exchanges. That idea may, itself, be a talking point and no more.

It’s not hard to imagine that a bright TV analyst, using the talents of lively speech, could gain quite a market for himself, or herself. Those are the abilities that appear to lie behind the quite notable success of Rachel Maddow, for example.

Might there be something to the charge that the corporate forces which put analysts on TV don’t want brightness. May they -- not conspiratorially and perhaps not even consciously -- be averse to a well-informed public who thinks through social issues? I’m not making any charges; I’m just wondering.

Something peculiar is going on, for sure. There ought not to be interviews like the one I cited above.