Objection. Unresponsive.

I was listening to a recent installment of Freakonomics Radio; this one about Realtors. One of the people that Stephen Dubner spoke to was the National Association of Realtors' chief economist, Lawrence Yun. It was a fairly on-sided conversation. Mr. Dubner would ask a question, and Mr. Yun would respond with a barely-related (if that) talking point. It wasn't long before I started questioning is Mr. Yun had even heard, let alone understood, the questions.

If I ever have the chance to talk to a journalist who has interviewed people in government or industry, especially about a topic that may make the organization in question look bad, I'd like to ask them what goes through their minds during such circumstances.

The (perhaps perverse) incentives on the "broadcast" side are clear enough, I suppose. For people like Mr. Dubner, getting people to come on the show to speak about some or another topic is important; episodes can't all be him simply explaining things to an audience. For people like Mr. Yun, there is an obligation to the organization; he can't say anything that would validate any public dissatisfaction with Realtors or their role in the home buying/selling process. And it's likely that he was well-prepped by the NAR's legal department with exactly what he should say, and what topics to avoid or redirect.

So, I suppose what I don't understand is what's in it for the listeners. Although maybe I am the only person who finds a continual string of non-answers to simple questions annoying. Mr. Dubner was asking interesting and pertinent questions, and it seemed that he was being stonewalled at every turn, all so that the NAR could portray themselves as being unfairly put-upon. It was ironic that Mr. Yun implied that greedy lawyers had snowed people to obtain an adverse verdict.

A couple of lawyers were able to find two, three unhappy owners and make a lawsuit. And you have 9, 11 jury members, so you can count the number of people involved in the lawsuit.

Something tells me the number of people involved was somewhat larger than Mr. Yun lets on. I understand why Mr. Dubner didn't challenge him on this; after all, his producers have to keep booking people for the show. And that, perhaps, is where the problem lies. Mr. Dubner needs his guests more than they need him. If the NAR were the ones having to do the asking, Mr, Dubner could have been harder on them. But I suspect that, despite complaints in the comments section, that most people listening to the podcast were okay with the NAR representative's talking points and insinuations, believing them better than them not having been given a chance to speak for themselves.

I'm not of the opinion that anyone who didn't already support the NAR came away with a positive impression of the organization. And maybe that's part of the point, although it seems that the NAR would have wanted to show itself in a better light.

In the end, I'm starting to think that maybe the Freakonomics Radio audience, and I include myself in this, simply doesn't have high enough expectations of anyone involved. Or maybe there's just a lack of a good means to enforce those expectations; it's not as if tuning the podcast out would make guests any more forthcoming. And few people who think they need a Realtor are going to pass just because the NAR's president and chief economist come across as sleazy. Something tells me that people are getting what they're willing to pay for, and that everyone involved understands just how much that is.