Cuomo Prime Time is a return of the evening show with Chris Cuomo featuring his very effective One on One format of extended interviews with key influencers. In this segment, Cuomo talks with Kellyanne Conway about the immigration crisis involving the separation of children from parents. Also discussed are the efforts underway to stop the U.S. opioid epidemic.
Commentary
To learn more about the current immigration crisis involving children being separated from their parents, view the immigration crisis timeline.
Given the adversarial relationship between the White House administration and news media networks (other than Fox News), this interview is significant. It’s an example of how news media can be doing its part to reform and improve in the following ways:
- Rather than just having guests who reaffirm the network and moderator’s views, there should be guests who hold contrary views. It’s important when we’re critical of people, policies, or practices to give others a chance to explain or defend themselves.
- Rather than interrupting and shouting at those who disagree with us, instead, give them a chance to complete a few sentences and clearly explain their views and positions. While this wasn’t exemplified as well in this interview, it’s seen in other interviews by Chris Cuomo.
- Those involved in reporting the news have an obligation to distill and reflect the variety of viewpoints in society, and an array of topics that are of interest to people.
- If a guest evades answering a question, respectfully ask them again, but don’t badger them.
- Being complementary, respectful, patient, attentive, and sincere should be the norm. While this wasn’t exemplified as well in this interview, it’s seen in other interviews by Chris Cuomo.
The critical underlying story these days, in everything we see on the news, is about restoring public trust in national news media. That is equally important as the content itself.