Say "Please"

The argument that journalistic rudeness ultimately serves the public is a false one, because these techniques rarely produce information. Those who disrupt events, disassociating themselves symbolically by flouting the standards of dress and decorum of others present, cannot expect to find out what they would in the fly-on-the-wall position.

If you ask a rude question, you're going to get a rude answer, and rude answers are not informative ones. Miss Manners has never learned anything from a reply to such crass inquiries as "How do you feel about your children being killed?" although she sometimes has from the polite inquiry, "Is there a lesson for society in all this?" No one seems moved to open up after being asked, "What are you trying to cover up?" but a polite invitation to "give your side of the story" yields amazing results.

Overexposure to thrillers and courtroom dramas has persuaded the society that truth and justice are only achieved through unpleasantness. Journalists, who have only to ask one polite question to have people pour out their hearts to them, should know better.

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