November 18th, 2009 at 10:52 am

Biden on The Daily Show: Worth Watching

You could tell that the Vice President was comfortable with Stewart’s crowd last night: he played along with the Amtrak gag, appeared unrestrained as he threw out a couple of straight-talk lines (some which a pool reporter would’ve turned into a day’s worth of stories), and repeatedly addressed the crowd.  It was a winner of a show for the Vice President and the administration.

Now, the interview was broad but not deep; and one could make the case that Stewart could’ve been tougher on Biden.  But even so, think if all interviews of the Vice President or President–or of any public figure for that matter–were conducted in the same way: in an environment that encourages nuance and discourages talking points; that presses on questions but doesn’t beat them to get a shiny response; that in general seeks a cooperative tone and tries to, rather than looking for a clause of a line that can be blown up into a story, work a nuanced story out of the discussion.

So many love Stewart for the skewering interviews and the MSM dissections–and I do, too.  But I think his essential lesson for other journalists is the way he conducts his interviews on a normal day.

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