21 Let’s Interview
'The more conversational you are, the more you seem invested in what they have to say, the more willing they are going to be to open up'
Nicole Kraft
“Some of the best advice I can give to young reporters in an interview is to just shut up.”
Mike Wagner
Most of us think interviews are simply asking questions and getting answers, but true interview skills come from asking the right questions of the right sources and gathering all of the information your reader needs and wants to know.
An interview can be defined as an interaction between two people, where questions are asked to elicit information. They are the key, quite simply, to information transmission, be it socially, formally or in business. And that is why journalists use interviews every day to find and report the news that keeps a society informed.
If that sounds like a conversation, good because that is the fundamental structure of an interview done well. But that is not all it is.
“It’s almost like any relationship in life — the more conversational you are, the more you seem invested in what they have to say, the more willing they are going to be to open up,” The Athletic’s Zack Meisel said. “It takes time.”
Too often journalists view interviews solely as the time and space in which to ask questions they have jotted into a notebook. That is a logical but superficial view. The quality and useful end product of an interview come actually from a lengthy equation combining:
- Knowledge your story.
- Identifying the facts of your story.
- Determining what information you need for that story.
- Determining what kind of sources you need to get that information.
- Finding sources for that story who can provide the answers you need.
- Working out when and where to meet those sources.
- Conceptualizing a mix of open- and closed-ended questions to get the information you need.
- Asking questions in a way that they can get the facts you need and result in at least some good, usable quotes.
- Getting information down quickly and accurately.
- Selecting which facts and quotes best present information your reader needs.
Sounds simple, right?
In truth, interviews are anything but simple, as they involve asking questions that reflect the information sought as clearly, yet conversationally, as possible. They require listening to and analyzing answers, while at the same time figuring out what to ask next. Interviewers must be nimble, ready to react in the event an answer results in a change to the direction of the conversation or, more significantly, the article being pursued. Interviewers read body language and between the lines of what is and is not being said.
“That is something that just doesn’t get taught a lot in collegiate programs,” said Lucas Sullivan of The Dispatch. “I never had a professor tell me if you just invest the time and learn how to talk to someone like a human being that is half the battle. Instead, you get this very clinical, look at this report and look at how th