That title sounds silly. But some interviews lack questions.
A TV anchor recently interviewed one of our clients live. Our client provided five answers during the interview. But all five answers were responses to statements not questions by the anchor. The anchor made statements, in a sense providing his own analysis, and then paused for our client to respond with answers.
I know firsthand these types of interviews can feel awkward. After I finished a live shot, anchors sometimes made statements expecting me to respond with answers. In those situations, the anchors did not actually ask questions.
This form of communication seems easy in everyday life. We have back and forth conversations without questions necessarily prompting the discussion to move forward. But this can throw some people off especially during live interviews in which you expect naturally to be asked questions.
Practice handling these interviews before the real thing. Respond to these statements in the same way you might if they were slightly reorganized into questions. And keep some extra facts and information in your back pocket to use in these very circumstances. If no one asked you a question and there is no obvious way to respond, use these opportunities to provide additional information you might otherwise not have an opportunity to share.
Hopefully you will not face these interviews often. But some journalists, TV hosts and other on air personalities like this style of interview.
In an ideal world, if reporters didn’t ask you questions, you wouldn’t need to provide answers. But just sitting there, saying nothing and staring back would truly look silly.