03/29/04’s illustrious band:

Axgrinders Drononymous

Brought to you by the Association of Health Care Journalists conference our Award-winning Magazine staff attended this past weekend.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be like MarsCon week, where I regale you with several days’ worth of observations from my weekend activities. I just want to comment on something I found really striking about this conference.

The AHCJ conference was a gathering of journalists. These are people who interview other people for a living. People who should, by their very nature, be skilled and practiced at asking clear, concise questions, right? But they're not! They're really, really not!

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the head of the National Institutes of Health -- a very important guy whose time one ought not waste -- gave the keynote address Friday evening. Some of the "questions" people stood up to ask were really just long, windy statements (like 5 full minutes) of their own agendas, i.e. "Do you now recognize the error of the NIH in not researching [insert journalist's pet topic here]?"

In courts of law, this sort of thing is called a leading question, and it usually provokes one or more attorneys to bolt from their chairs exclaiming “I object!” The offending party is then required to restate the question without bias, or shut up. I almost objected several times on Friday.

Dr. Z called quite a few people on their lack of technique, saying essentially, "I see that this subject is very important to you [a gibe, since journalists are supposed to remain objective] -- but what was your actual question?" several times. No one caught on, though. The ax-grinding continued until Dr. Z -- did I mention he's the very important head of a vital federal program? -- clearly frustrated, called an end to the Q&A. I was embarrassed for my colleagues.

OK, time to get down off my soapbox and get on with the business of the day. This includes a conference-sponsored field trip to a medical device manufacturer’s headquarters. Mmm, gadgets!

Today around the world: March 29 is my late Dad’s birthday. It’s also Youth Day in Taiwan and Memorial Day in Madagascar.

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