Association of Interviewers admits to new LAZI policy

Today, Jeff Billingsworth, general secretary of the Television Interviewer and Talkshow Society admitted that its members had adopted a standard policy known as Leading and Zero Interruption for questioning their subjects.

"In today’s fast paced media world, our members have to get their soundbites in at the first attempt before the next advert break, weather report or shameless book plug."
A leaked memo reveals the policy is in fact a simple matter of forcing both the topic of conversation and the answer into a single thirty second response from the interviewee using a standard set of opening gambits. These include "How important was …", "How devastating has …" "How angry are you …" or the more tabloid "How gutted are you … "

Mr Billingsworth was unrepentant about the policy. "In the past journalists had degrees and years of experience in their subject matter. Nowadays our members are reality TV stars cum chat show hosts or retired sportsmen. They can’t be expected to learn the craft and so we devised the easy to use LAZI system for them".

The leaked memo reveals that the policy is being tested in the area of sports and if proven successful will be rolled out to other forms of interviewing. The trial is being lead by Hazel Irvine who, media watchers observed, based the whole of her Ryder Cup coverage on LAZI interviewing.