The other day, I wrote this piece on how "questions from the floor" at public speeches and events so often turn into some guy in the audience hijacking the attention for his own. It's received a lot of linkage and e-mail response.
A couple of folks reported on some recent gathering where Q-and-A with the audience provided a great, memorable experience. Fine. I wasn't saying it never happens…just that with what feels to me like increasing frequency, it often doesn't. In the right venue with the right crowd, it can be a joyous and enriching thing. I just think that those of us who get to play Moderator or Host should be more diligent about policing the questioners…and not so quick to assume that there must always be time for open mike queries.
Most of all, of course, I was hoping to send a message to those who commit atrocities from the aisles: You're being rude…often to the person(s) on stage you profess to honor, always to the audience around you. There's nothing wrong with asking a question…and you may well ask a vital one that will yield much enlightenment. You just have to remember that no one is there because of you. Opening the floor to questions is not an invitation for you to try and make the event be about you.
One other thing I oughta mention: I've done a couple of public interviews where the interviewee stipulated certain topics that could not be discussed. That happens. Years ago at a comic convention, I did a one-on-one with Harvey Kurtzman, who among his other achievements was the founding editor of Mad. An unannounced condition of Harvey's appearance was the agreement that he would not be asked on stage why he'd left Mad or about any of the business-type aspects of his relationship there.
He discussed it with me and others in private, and it wasn't so much that Harvey didn't want to talk about it in public but that he'd found that to properly explain it took a very long time. The chat we had about it over lunch took at least ninety minutes, maybe longer. He said that if he tackled it in front of the audience, it would have been even more difficult because he was still contemplating legal action and would have had to select his words more carefully and with less candor. (To my knowledge, he never did take that legal action but at that moment, it was still an option he wished to not complicate.)
What actually concerned him even more was the feeling that if he addressed that matter before the masses and did any sort of justice to the query, the interview would have seemed to be about nothing else. It would have been covered in the press, he believed, as if it had just been Kurtzman grousing the whole time about how he didn't make enough money off Mad and then his colleagues and the folks at Mad would have felt Harvey was running around, bad-mouthing them without hearing his actual words.
He didn't want that so it was understood that we'd sidestep that subject. Moreover, I was not to say that Harvey was declining to address the issue…and he also insisted that questions from the floor be submitted in writing so that I could screen them and not ask the ones about why he left Mad. This was wise on his part because of perhaps fifty we received, at least half were "Why did you leave Mad?"
That had been left unasked as we neared the close of what was truly, because of Mr. Kurtzman, a wonderful and fascinating discussion. Then with about five minutes left on the clock, an alleged friend of mine leaped from his seat in the fifth row and shouted towards the stage, "Why haven't you asked him why he left Mad?" Gee, thanks, alleged friend. I stammered that we didn't have time. The alleged friend yelled out, "Hey, we're not goin' anywhere! The next panel in this room can wait!" and most of the audience applauded.
Harvey stage-whispered to me, "This is why I don't like doing these," but then he said into the mike, very softly and with a note of embarrassment in his voice, "It's a long story, one I don't feel I can tell properly without giving all sides and that takes more time than we have." It pained him to say that, in part because it caused a good presentation to end on a note of disappointment.
It also pained me a bit because at least two of the folks in the house went home and wrote articles about the event, noting what a crappy interviewer I was to not leave time to ask Harvey Kurtzman the question that was on everyone's minds. One complained particularly about having to submit questions in writing and suggested it was my doing because I was on an "ego trip" (that was the term he used…anyone here remember ego trips?) and didn't want anyone asking questions of The Great Kurtzman but me. I have since come to realize that the guy in my position sometimes has to be Bad Cop and take the heat in that way. A few years later, Kurtzman's partner Will Elder did something similar to me on a panel and by then, I was more amused than annoyed by it. I just wish people would understand that sometimes, there's a reason a question isn't asked. These people are not elected officials or wishing to become elected officials. They don't have to be grilled on whatever subjects they'd rather not discuss.
One more anecdote along these lines. I interviewed Ray Bradbury in front of many thousands of people, shortly after the Michael Moore film Fahrenheit 9/11 had come out. Bradbury was outraged at the appropriation/parody of the title of (arguably) his best novel but his friends and family asked me to keep him off that topic; to direct the discussion to his work and not to politics. I figured that was what the audience most wanted to hear about anyway so while there was no explicit understanding to not go there, I decided to steer clear of the subject of Moore's documentary.
After introducing Mr. Bradbury to an ovation they probably heard in the next state, I decided to get things going with a bit of chit-chat about his health, which had been the subject of some pessimistic reports. I asked him, "So, Ray, how have you been feeling these days?"
He immediately answered, "I don't like Michael Moore."
Sometimes, there's only so much the moderator can do.
