Pivoting in media interviews/talkshows --- Good point, Joe. You may have known this: In any media training including at the Red Cross, we teach spokespersons to avoid answering hypothetical questions. Those spokespersons can be heads of agencies and technical program officers who don’t necessarily have communication background. Hypothetical questions usually start with “what if …” and the more subtle variation like, “let’s say that you were …”.

There are some techniques to answer this question, from the straightforward, in-your-face “I don’t respond to hypothetical questions” to reframing the questions to pivoting away, perhaps by cleverly broadening the discussion on other aspects of the speaker’s agenda.

Source author: Ivy Susanti ivysusanti@gmail.com