Hot tips on how to read an article that’s printed in form of Q&A

The following are hot tips — valuable pieces of inside information — on how to read and interpret stories published in the form of question and answer, better known as Q&A. 

I’m offering these tips following a contested Q&A published recently in the Daily Nation about the achievements of a certain woman. I’ll not name the woman, nor identify the Q&A or its writer, to protect the innocent.

A reader, Jemimah Mwangi, said when she read the Q&A she “could not help but cringe”. She knew the woman and wondered what criteria the Nation used to feature her as a success story. 

“Truth be told, your writer was duped,” she said. “Your platform was used for marketing and, therefore, serving your readers a sheer fake story.”

Another reader, Boaz Omondi, found the article “too comical at best and scandalous at worst”. He also knew the woman. “Methinks your [reporter] swallowed hook, line and sinker every lie [they were] told,” he said.

The reporter said the two complainants didn’t provide evidence to counter the contents of the article and what she, as the writer, had gathered from other sources prior to the interviewing. 

“As such, I can confidently say that I did my due diligence and I’m happy with the article,” the reporter told me in an email.

No matter the merits or demerits of the complaints, my purpose here is to offer tips on how to read and decipher Q&As.

Commonly used in the Nation, Q&As are interviews published in the format of question-and-answer. The Friday Nation regularly publishes such articles in its MyNetWork section. Other editions of the Nation also publish Q&As from time to time. The last Sunday Nation published a Q&A interview of Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru. It was headlined “I trusted easily but I’m wiser now: Waiguru@50”. 

Functionally promotional

You can find such Q&As in the Nation down the line since the newspaper was first published on October 3, 1960.

What’s important for the reader to know is that nearly all Q&As are functionally promotional. As a genre of journalistic writing, they’re the greatest gift to people seeking publicity and self-promotion.

An example of such Q&A I recently found in the course of my complaints editor work is a piece that was published in the Sunday Nation of June 28, 2015. It’s headlined “Busting crime, serving up justice is my passion”. It catapulted Jane Mugo, a private detective and CEO of Trimo Security Services, to local fame.

Readers should know Q&As are invariably published without analysis or interpretation of the content. Editing is limited to shortening the answers (if they are too long), arranging the questions and answers so that they make sense and the article becomes more navigable.

The answers may also be edited to correct grammar, but the subject of the interview, not the reporter, controls the content (answers). In some cases, the subject may also predetermine or approve the questions. 

He may even demand that the questions be submitted ahead of the interview so he can work on the answers. There may not even be a face-to-face interview, but just an exchange of emails.

Journalists love Q&As because they’re easy to write; they don’t need multiple sources as is required in most news stories, features and investigative stories, which is hard work and time-consuming. 

Q&As are a win-win for the journalist and the subject of the interview.

So next time you read a Q&A, remember why journalists love them, why people seek or offer themselves to be interviewed for such articles and why you should watch out for unchecked hype, exaggeration, overstatements, self-promotion, self-publicity and self-marketing.

The Public Editor is an independent news ombudsman who handles readers’ complaints on editorial matters, including accuracy and journalistic standards. Email: [email protected]. Call or text 0721989264.