This article provides an overview of the dynamics of
answering and resisting or evading questions in broadcast news
interviews. After a preliminary examination of the practices
through which answers are recognizably constructed, the analysis
turns to the practices through which interviewees manage responses
that resist the agenda of an interviewer's question. When
resisting overtly, interviewees engage in various forms of
“damage control.” When resisting covertly, interviewees
take steps to render the resistance less conspicuous. Both sets
of practices facilitate resistant responses by reducing the
negative consequences that might otherwise follow. Such practices
demonstrate that, although interviewees have developed practices
for resisting questions, the norm of answering remains a salient
feature of the contemporary broadcast news interview.