Answer the Question!

Just a few quick words here today about how people tend to not know how to answer questions.
This will sound like a rant, but it really isn’t a rant, I do not feel at all ranty about it or anything but it is really mysterious to me, and so I will say a few words about it and put it behind me, and move on with my life.
I live in this part of Canada that seems to be all in a proverbial knot about the fact that notorious killer Karla Homolka is now released from her prison term and trying to settle back into the outside world. Apparently, she chose to settle in Longueuil, Quebec, (basically a suburb of Montreal) using an alias and wearing sunglasses all over the place and generally (one would think) trying to stay away from the media, which is fairly hounding her every move, and trying to unearth her every whereabouts and whatabouts.
What I am going to be mentioning here today has very little to do with what should be done with Karla Homolka, I really do not have any staunch opinions about it, and (to be honest) I have not followed the story of it all very closely.
No, what I wanted to mention here is merely something about the response of ordinary citizens like you and I, something I saw on the news this morning.
They were interviewing people on the street.... Joe and Mary Average, you know?
And the question, asked to each and every person, was this: “Do you feel that there is too much coverage on the Karla Homolka story in the newspapers?”
Again, by way of context here, the question is being asked because in the past few days, Homolka sightings have dominated the newspaper pages. One day (I think it was Tuesday) most daily papers were featuring anywhere from 10 to 13 pages of pictures.... Homolka in the park with Maggie, her pet dog. Other shots of her conversing with a friend at a sidewalk café. Others of her speaking with her new employer. Pictures, pictures, pictures. Of course, the issue at hand is that her (now former) employer is claiming that she breached certain of her legal restrictions, and granted, this may (or may not) be the case. We have yet to find out which is which.
The point is.... the above question is that which was asked of these people on the street.
As I sipped my coffee and watched, almost on my way out the door to work, I was appalled at the fact that not even one person’s answer had anything to do with the question. They interviewed perhaps four or five people. The answers ranged anywhere from statements concerning how society was wronged by Homolka’s release from prison in the first place, to how unfair it is that she is allowed to live as a citizen on the outside nowadays, to how the entire trial was a real botched-up affair and now we (the rest of humanity) have to live with the consequences..... now, whether or not these things are true or not is not my point. What these folks were saying is relevant and provocative, and all of that.... but it is not an appropriate answer to the question, which was clearly stated to each person. “Do you feel that there is too much coverage on the Karla Homolka story in the newspapers?”
Can it be made any more point blank than that?
I kept watching and thinking.... “Answer the question!”
What were these people..... politicians? Running for office?
The fact that people are obviously hearing something different than the question asked is not even the worst part of my horror. The worst part is this..... their answers are accepted!
The interviewer does not steer them back to the question asked. They simply move on to the next person.
What I am getting at here is this:
If I were the chief editor (or whatever it is called) responsible for this particular piece of journalism, I would have hauled that interviewer into my office and sat them down and played this segment back to them over and over until they got my point. And the point would be thus:
YOUR SUBJECTS ARE NOT ANSWERING YOUR QUESTION!
How could the interviewer be pleased with these people’s “answers”?
THAT is what is a mystery to me!
[I guess this is sort of quickly degenerating into a bit of a rant, huh?]
Perhaps it is something that just comes down to different types of personalities.
I am of a somewhat precise personality when it comes to these sort of things. It bothers me when I ask someone something and they invent some sort of response that has little to do with my question. However, if they do this, I will at least steer them back to the original question. If I ask someone something, I have always framed the question fairly precisely and purposefully.
In a corollary sense, this is one area of my life (and there are few) where I practise what I preach. If I am asked a question, I will answer the question or else explain why I cannot answer the question. But I will not veer all over the place and forget about what was asked of me.
For what it’s worth, in today’s example, if I were one of the interviewed people on the street, I would have said the following:
“Yes, I feel that there is too much coverage of this thing in the newspapers. If she is currently doing something that is against the law, or harmful to the society in which she has been freed to roam, than yes, we should be made aware of that, with words and photos, if necessary. But I am not sure why we need to see ten pages of Karla walking her dog in a park, eating an ice cream cone, having a picnic, or trying to talk to someone at a café. The time for condemning her was back there at her trial, and we did so. If the penance inflicted at that time was not severe enough, that is the legal system’s fault, not Karla’s. Taking pictures of her every time she breathes in public and then publishing them for the world to see is just as much an invasion of privacy as if it were done of you and me.”

You may agree or disagree with my opinion. You may think I am wrongheaded about it. But the one thing you cannot do is say I have not answered the question.
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