Answering your questions about Talk to Power

Thu Sep 28, 10:30 AM ET

We want to address some questions directed to Yahoo! News about how Talk to Power works.

During the segment with Sen. Robert Bennett (news, bio, voting record), one writer asked us whether guests pick and choose their own comments or if Yahoo! does the picking.

Good question. The answer is that it varies. Some guests look to Yahoo! editors to pick questions from among the many that are posted; others want to do the picking themselves. But any guest who appears on Talk to Power may choose to respond to any question on the board (or not!).  Thus far, the sheer volume of questions has required at least some level of filtering by editors before presenting a set of questions to the guest. 

The same writer also asked if guests intend to answer all questions posed. The answer is that volume simply precludes it. Thus far all of our guests have received hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of comments and questions. With that kind of volume, no guest can answer every one, at least in the video-response format.

In theory, then, a guest could skip "tough" questions and only address a few outlying issues raised by Yahoo! users. That hasn't been the case so far, though. Every guest has addressed the dominant issues raised on the boards as well as interesting "one-offs."  

As a general rule, the live interviews are conducted by Judy Woodruff, who as the host of Talk to Power acts as a sort of ombudsman for those who have posted their questions and opinions.  Sometimes she will ask follow-up questions or request amplification if she feels a reader's comment hasn't been fully addressed.

Another person wrote to ask why our comment boards don't allow indenting and separate paragraphs. "These comments and questions would be so much more readable - and hence useful - if you would preserve some simple text formatting like paragraphs."

Agreed.  We hope to tune up the formatting capabilities.

Finally, we are asked fairly frequently about deleted comments. Do we delete some comments? Yes, we do. We remove comments that are obscene or otherwise objectionable, off-topic or irrelevent. As a general rule, we try to maintain a measure of civility. 

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We want Talk to Power to be a great experience for everyone. 

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Previous: Sen. Robert Bennett responds

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