You can see it every night on the national TV news shows - politicians and their boosters evading direct questions with indirect answers.

Unfortunately, it's not a tactic exclusive to the federal level of government. We've seen plenty of question-dodging at the state, county, town, city, village and school district level, too.

In one-on-one interviews, good reporters do not let the non-answers slide. “That's interesting, but I didn't hear the answer to my question. Let me ask it again,” is a typical follow-up a journalist will ask.

This back-and-forth, however, has its limitations on live TV. At some point, the interviewer must decide whether it's worthwhile to keep pressing the issue or, in the interest of gathering information in a finite amount of time, move on to new questions. It's not an easy decision to make on your feet.

The bottom line is that sometimes, no matter how hard they try, journalists fail to get direct answers. For people who are reading, listening to or viewing the news, those moments should create skepticism. Why won't that person simply answer the question?

I hope that's the way readers approach a feature we've published for a couple of years now in The Citizen - the On the Spot column. Each Thursday, we pose a question to a government official and invite them to answer it in their own words.

It's actually a wonderful opportunity for an official to get their message out unfiltered. You'd be surprised, though, how many of them chose not to participate. The biggest stated reason for non-participation is that the person is too busy. To be blunt, that's a lame excuse. And I don't buy that it's a truthful excuse, either.

Most officials who decline to answer the question do so because they don't want to touch the issue, even if it directly pertains to their job.

There are some people who do agree to write a column, but their answers clearly evade the question. When that happens, we have some options. We can go back to the official and ask them to submit again. We've done that, and the answer is almost always “no.” We could walk away from the situation completely by not publishing the column. Or we could run the column with the question, and let the readers make their own conclusions.

We've generally chosen the last option when question-dodging surfaces, and savvy readers have noted the response's failure to address the issue at hand.

Still, I often contemplate the value of this particular feature. Is it a good reader service, or should we try another approach. I'd love to hear what you think.

Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's columns appear Saturdays in The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net