Ambush by media

An ambush by media is an unexpected question designed to catch the interviewee, typically a conservative, off guard in order to cast him or her in a misleading light. The question is often irrelevant to issues of importance to voters or the topic of the interview.

Examples include:

Interviewer  | Interviewee  | Question asked  | Analysis

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Charles Gibson | Sarah Palin | "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?"[1] | "Bush doctrine" is silly media jargon unfamiliar to most people, yet the question was phrased as though Palin should know and accept the term; Gibson then refused to explain what he meant by the trick question.
Katie Couric | Sarah Palin | Name three Supreme Court cases that were wrongly decided.[2] | Joe Biden, asked a similar question on a separate interview, apparently could not even identify the name of a Supreme Court case that invalidated legislation that he had sponsored, yet he received almost no criticism.
|  |  |

## References[edit]

1. ↑ https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5782924&page=4
2. ↑ http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/palin-silent-on.html