How NPR’s Steve Inskeep cracked the code for interviewing Trump
The veteran host used a ‘truth sandwich’ approach to counter the former president’s election lies
Margaret Sullivan
washingtonpost.com

Too many interviews make the newsmaker “the narrator of the story,” he explained — and particularly in these political times, “sometimes they are unreliable narrators.”
Presenting these conversations as raw Q&A’s means that the public is deprived of the necessary context. Deprived, too often, of truth. “You need extra voices, extra facts, extra context,” Inskeep said.
As the first snippets of the recorded interview were played for listeners just after 5 a.m. Wednesday, some essential context came in the form of an introductory dialogue between Inskeep and co-host Rachel Martin. At one point, Inskeep bluntly characterized his conversation with Trump with this straightforward observation: “He repeated his lies a lot.”
Crucially, NPR had chosen not to rush the long-awaited interview onto the airwaves, giving Inskeep and his team time to produce the segment smartly, with all the necessary background. “There’s almost no story that isn’t improved by holding it for a day,” Inskeep said. That isn’t always possible of course — sometimes the news won’t wait. But in this case, the extra time paid off.