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The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

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THE BOOK OF TELLS<br />

Insults are the Exocets <strong>of</strong> political weapons. If the target is<br />

right and they're carefully aimed, they can have a devastating<br />

effect on how a politician is perceived. In some<br />

cases the damage can be permanent. <strong>The</strong> British now find<br />

it extremely difficult to talk about Ge<strong>of</strong>frey Howe without<br />

thinking <strong>of</strong> a dead sheep, while in America it's almost<br />

impossible to have a conversation about Gerald Ford without<br />

someone mentioning chewing gum or farting.<br />

Interview <strong>Tells</strong><br />

<strong>The</strong>re are several ways that political interviews are<br />

supposed to differ from ordinary conversations. Typically<br />

the interviewer should make the first move, set the<br />

agenda, ask the questions, and have the last word.<br />

<strong>The</strong> politician, on the other hand, is expected to follow the<br />

interviewer's lead, to answer the questions without<br />

waffling, and not to ask the interviewer questions unless<br />

clarification is needed. This is the way political interviews<br />

are supposed to be conducted. In practice, however, they<br />

<strong>of</strong>ten turn out to be quite different.<br />

Interviewers ask politicians two types <strong>of</strong> question -<br />

'closed questions', which require a 'yes' or 'no' answer,<br />

and 'open questions', which allow the politician to give an<br />

answer without saying 'yes' or 'no'. Regardless <strong>of</strong> which<br />

type <strong>of</strong> question they pose, interviewers are always trying<br />

to get politicians to give 'direct' answers - that is,<br />

responses that address the question, rather than 'indirect'<br />

answers which don't address the question. In the early<br />

1990s, Sandra Harris studied political interviews<br />

in Britain and discovered that 'direct' answers featured in<br />

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