The purveyors of “Bovine excrement” seem to have come up with a new “product” . A person is being interviewed by a media “personality”, and they ask the interviewee a question which they try to make provocative, the interviewee starts his answer with, “So, you want to know if X, Y, or Z did A,B, or C, What the f*ck is this all about? is it just to gain a bit of “think time” before they answer? who are the wankers who produce this crap, and how do they “sell” it?

“Bovine excrement”

There’s a lot of it around.

Do you have some specific bs in mind?

Sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about.

I don’t understand. Are you asking how to market cow poo?

The public personage has caught on to the trick of refining the question so he can answer it his own terms.
Or effectively asking another better question.

Ian said:

The public personage has caught on to the trick of refining the question so he can answer it his own terms.
Or effectively asking another better question.

Mostly because the media are always trying to trap the interviewee with clever word games. The media have their own internal pecking order, trapping politicians with clever tricks is what earns them points within their own profession. Actually asking neutral questions and reporting factually on the answers has gone out the window long ago. I don’t blame politicians for treating every question like a potential trap – because they usually are.

Think of the KRudd interview technique.
Or the episode of Yes Prime Minister where Bernard gets trapped into giving a press interview.

a rhetorical question?