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Level of Threat

A Means of Assessing Interviewer Toughness and Neutrality

Judy Elliott

University of York

Eighteen interviews televised during the 1992 British General Election were analyzed to evaluate six leading political interviewers in terms of toughness and neutrality. Tough questions were defined as those where each of the principal modes of possible response presented some form of face-threat (cf. no-necessary-threat questions, which allowed at least one type of response that was not intrinsically face-threatening). Brian Walden emerged as the toughest interviewer, with 49.4% of his questions carryinga face-threat in every direction; David Frost was the softest (28.9% of questions). An analysis in terms of neutrality showed that most interviewers gave John Major the toughest interviews and Paddy Ashdown the easiest interviews, except for Frost, whose interviews showed the opposite trend. These findings were elaborated by a content analysis using 19 categories of face-threat and a questionnaire in which observers rated the six interviewers in terms of toughness and neutrality.

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