Jeopardy!'s co-head writer won't think past the Alex Trebek era, addresses problematic clues

Vulture

Michele Loud, a Jeopardy! writer since 1991 who was recently promoted to join Billy Wisse as a head writer, says she won't even think about Trebek not hosting amid his battle with pancreatic cancer. "I truly don’t think beyond Alex," she tells Vulture. "I’m enjoying every moment with Alex and staying very present in the moments that we have him, and, yeah, I don’t think beyond that. That’s an honest answer; I really don’t have a replacement in mind." As for problematic clues, she says; "Sometimes you find a great fact and you simply can’t source it. We have a standard of double sourcing, so we have two independent sources for each fact in the clue. If you just can’t find it, then unfortunately a great fact has to go away. Sometimes things are too good to be true. You have to be skeptical of things. As for the toughness factor, it comes from experience. If none of the writers can correctly answer it, we feel like, Well, how can anyone else have heard of it? If it’s too obscure for all of us in the room, there’s no point in asking it. We’re not out to stump the contestants and the people at home. That’s not an interesting show. There’s always something better that you can write about."