Interviewing

12 Best Practices of Interviewing

1) Organization & Preparation. The best interviewers are well prepared. Prep includes reading clips and relevant documents; talking to editors for angle, etc.; distilling your story idea into a coherent budget line; and working out questions and interview goals and tactics before calling or going to interview.

2) Asking Good Questions. Take time before an interview, whether on the phone or live, to decide such things as what questions, how many, what order. Start writing the article to help develop specific questions. Some interviews are purely informational. Many are five Ws and an H. Sometimes you are looking for a quote, other times an anecdote. Sometimes you are interviewing for fair comment, for balance or to fill out a story with another voice. Knowing the goal of the interview helps conduct an efficient interrogation. Anticipate the readers’ questions: How come? How do you know that? I don’t get it! What do you mean? So what? Be aware that the best interview material often comes from the first and last questions. A good interviewer is an expert questioner.

3) Establish good rapport. The first minute(s) of any interview are about establishing good relations with the subject and working out control. Always identify yourself immediately as a reporter, say what you are working on (even if that’s not precisely what you are really working on!), and politely request a few minutes (40 minutes, an hour, if live) of the source’s time. Chat the source up a bit, if appropriate, but don’t wait too long to come to the point. Always maintain courtesy and respect. Present yourself as innocent, friendly, unafraid and curious. Make sure the source knows the groundrules: everything on the record unless reporter agrees to go off. Cede some control at the outset by using broad, open-ended questions: Tell me what happened? Can you fill me in on X?

4) If you want thoughtful answers and good quotes, give your subject time to think and respond. Don’t pressure for fast answers. The best stuff often comes after an awkward silence.

5) Don’t be afraid to plead ignorance or ask for help. You are not supposed to be an expert in everything, only in gathering information and recognizing news. Subjects often respond to a statement from the reporter, like, “Can you help me understand this? If you can’t help me, who can?” Remember: If you don’t understand, the reader won’t understand. If you don’t get it, ask for an explanation.

6) Be an active listener. In live interviews, that means maintaining eye contact and showing with facial expressions and body language you are paying intense attention. In telephone interviews, it means interjecting words of reinforcement: “Uh-huh.” “OK.” “I understand.” “Really?” Restating what the subject has said shows you understand what s/he has said. “What I hear you saying is…” “In other words, you…” Reflecting shows the subject you are listening and helps develop the topic. “So you feel pretty bad (good, hopeful, skeptical) about that?” “I guess you were pretty angry (frustrated, delighted, dubious…) about that?” Summarizing at the end of a long answer shows you are listening and helps shape and measure the response. “As I understand it, you think (said, did)…” “The key idea as far as you are concerned is…” In many interviews, listening is equally important to asking questions.

7) A good interview is a conversation. Matching the tone and rhythm of the subject will help the subject open up to you. Go with the flow: if the subject takes a sharp turn, be prepared to go off your planned line of questioning and follow his/her new direction. Don’t be afraid to challenge bad information or incomplete, imprecise, unforthcoming answers, but don’t be argumentative.

8 ) Ask the tough questions in the second half. That gives the subject time to warm up, but gives you time to get some info and facts, in case the subject bails or locks up. Don’t accept when the source suddenly wants to go off the record without a fight. Bluffing is ok for tough questions. For example, ask the mayor why he fired the whistle-blower, rather than if he did so. A good tactic, sometimes, is to ask the tough question several times in slightly different variations dispersed through the interview among less tough questions.

9) Handle the “no comment” viola: 1) In the case of public officials, say something like, “I feel bad about just putting a ‘no comment’ in the story, since readers will think you don’t know something you should know or you are hiding something. I’d prefer to put your side of the story in. Look, I only have two options here. I can write a fair story that says you refused to cooperate or I can do a fair story that has your point of view. Either way, I’m doing the story. Now which do you want?” 2) In the case of nonpublic officials who are maybe frightened, say something like, “You don’t have to worry. You are just one of several people I’m talking with. It’s no big deal. You have every right to speak. It’s the American way.”

10) Handle the lie with patient confidence. Don’t interrupt the liar. Let him or her finish. Let him or her furnish the rope for his/her own hanging. If you have the nerve, simply ask for more details. Then calmly go back and deconstruct the lie point by point, confronting the subject with the lie. You have now cornered the liar.

11) Fail-safe closers. Never say “This is my last question.” As soon as you announce it, you’ll think of three more. Instead, try these: “Want to add anything?” “Who else can I speak to about this?” “Can I call back if I have another question?” “Is there anything else the newspaper should look into?”

12) The most important 15 minutes are after the interview. If you are not in the office, go to someplace where you can be by yourself and go over your notes, filling out and filling in. If you are in the newsroom, go over your notes immediately and fill out partial quotes, anecdotes, sentences, etc. Humans lose 50 percent of accurate recall after one hour, 90 percent overnight.

- Jonathan Maslow, Herald News, Aug. 2003

Asking the Extra Question

Here’s a familiar scenario: you go out to report a daily. Let’s say a public housing authority is taking tenants from a building and moving them to other buildings. You ask the responsible official why. The official tells you that tenants no longer want to live in the building because it’s dangerous and decrepit. The people are voting with their feet, the official tells you.

The housing authority, the official continues, is diligently finding
alternative accommodations for all the tenants. No one is being put out on the street. In addition, the authority hopes to get federal funds to tear
down the building, so that a private developer can build new housing. The authority plans to give the tenants of the bad building Section 8 rental vouchers so they can live in the new housing or find apartments in the private rental market.

Several tenants you interview confirm what the official has told you: they
don’t want to live in the bad building; the authority is helping them
relocate.

You’ve got your story. Right? Not necessarily.

Here is where it’s a good practice to ask the extra question: why? Why is the bad building bad? How did it get bad?

Logically, a building goes bad because it has poor security and maintenance. Why? Did the authority have the funds to secure and maintain? If not, why not?

Is the deeper story here that the feds have been withdrawing support for public housing and shifting support to Section 8? That’s information that readers can use.

As you can see, asking the extra question(s) deepens the reader’s
understanding, but requires the reporter to analyze what she has found and think about the story.

- Jonathan Maslow, March 2005