Why do interviewers on news outlets sometimes abrubtly cut off their subjects, even though nowadays video storage is abundant and editing is relatively easy? I mean you’d think they can just let their guests finish their sentence and edit the interview down to whatever time they want to spend on it right?
I was watching [this interview with Naomi Klein](https://youtu.be/NDWrHd-izFg?si=Yi4hTx9ikgocQLhv) about her book. It was quite long about 40 minutes but at the end she is still abruptly cut off mid-sentence with a quick “okay we have to leave it there”
I mean couldn’t the interviewer at some point just say some house-keeping stuff like “okay please make your closing remarks now”, and then edit out those house-keeping parts in post, and cut the interview down to whatever time length they want to allot to it?
You could say it was because it’s a smaller media company and they don’t have as many editors on staff. However I’ve seen it happen on numerous bigger outlets as well, MSNBC, CNN and other news outlets.
In: Technology
Sometimes it’s Becuase of time requirements, like we’re live and have 20 minutes before the next thing we have to do, we need to wrap up.
Other times it could be because the interviewer has a thing they need to get around to. So lets say I ask you about your volunteer work and you give an impassioned answer for 27 minutes about your work in Eritrea. I was lobbing you that question expecting a quick soundbite that I can then say “Spngiven your volunteer work, how did that inform your performance in the new movie “Retreat to Eritrea”? (Note, we’re getting paid to talk about the movie, not your passion project).
Other times it may be because you’re going into territory that the station doesn’t want. Ie you’re talking about how you needed to build water wells in Eritrea because Monsanto poisoned the water supply and refused to fix it, but Monsanto owns the station and doesn’t want that talking point coming up.
As for just letting them talk and editing out the excess, that doesn’t mean your interviewer got any time back, so a one hour interview allowed to run 2.5 hours means your paying theninterviewer, camera crews, lighting, sound and production staff an extra 1.5 hours, And now a team of editors, and then the approval on any cuts made, which can be complicated as you don’t want a choppy, heavily edited interview.
Think about the viewer if one minute I’m in the middle of an impassioned story about drinking water then we’re in a flat wrap up section discussing a new movie, it creates a question of what’s being hidden, or have we altered the speakers message which could create blowback.
Easier to have the host say “I’m sorry, we’re out of time, thanks for coming, and I look forward to seeing your new movie.”
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