Becoming a Journalist: Interview Skills

If you're a beginning journalist, it won't take you long to figure out that you don't know everything. So you seek out experts on the subject of your article--hurricanes, child care, stock market investment, soccer, French cooking.

How you handle those interviews will make the difference in creating an interesting article or a dead-end, ho-hum piece of prose.

Here are some tips (based on a lifetime of experience, including hosting a radio talk show):

1. Before you go to the interview, do some research on your expert's background. Does he/she have practical experience or university laboratory experience or just a passing acquaintance with the topic of the article?

2. Create some preliminary questions that you will ask, but know ahead of time that the interview itself may make some of those questions irrelevant or unnecessary. Example: Your expert is world famous for climbing high mountains. When you actually get into the dialogue, the expert mentions that he was afraid of heights when he was a small child, a fear he overcame when an uncle took him on hiking/camping trips. That angle in itself adds human interest to the story and is worth pursuing in the dialogue.

3. Use a general-to-specific order when starting the interview. First, some general questions (How long have  you been knowledgeable in this area, what got you started in this field, what was your educational training for this field?) As the person answers your questions, go with the flow. Use your listening skills and direct eye contact to stay focused on the responses. (Don't ask a question and then start thinking about the next question while the expert is answering the original question. You may miss some very important details.)

4. If you determine early in the interview that the "expert" is a phony ("All hat and no cattle" as they say in Texas), diplomatically bring the conversation to a graceful conclusion and then bail out. You are wasting your time, which could be better spent in seeking out real experts.

5. Keep some open-ended questions in your repertoire: What is the biggest challenge to you in your line of work? Who was the most memorable person you met during your years of experience? What advice would you give to a beginner in your field? What do you enjoy most about your line of work or experience?) These types of questions can lead you down some fascinating and even surprising avenues.

6. Ask the expert for clear definitions of technical terms used in his/her responses. An expert in French cuisine, for example, can toss a lot of specialized terms at you. If you don't know what the term means, your readers may not know, either. So get definitions on the spot--and get correct spellings, too.

7. Don't engage in arguments with your subject, even if you disagree violently with things the person says. This interview is not about you. Sometimes just using the expert's direct words will tell the reader more about the expert than your winning a philosophical debate with the person. And an argument from you will perhaps shut off the conversation entirely, losing you some interesting details you could have gained from the person.

8.  If the person you're interviewing continues to give you "Yes" and "No" answers to each of your questions, and no matter how you try to re-phrase the questions to get something interesting, you have reached another example of "diplomatic bailout". Some people, no matter how smart or skilled they are, are pathetic subjects for interviews. Move on with your life, but do it politely so that you don't leave a bad taste. You might have to contact this person at some point in the future.

9. Be sure that you get a contact phone number or email address, just in case that other questions occur to you as you're writing the article. You may need to clarify a statement the person made, and you don't want to risk "winging it" with what you think is the truth.

10. Sometimes an interview subject will ask you to let him/her look over your draft article for approval. This is a place for diplomacy. It's one thing for an interview subject to help you be more accurate in presentation of facts. But it's a no-no in journalism for your expert to become your literary critic. Use your assigning editor as your referral source:"I'll have to check with my editor on that."

11. In carrying out an effective interview, use your own curiosity to guide you. If you are interviewing a NASA astronaut, surely there are questions you have always wanted to have answered regarding outer space. Let that curiosity motivate your questions. No doubt things you want to know about space travel are identical with what a lot of other landlocked readers want to know, too.

12. It never hurts to write a thank-you note. If you send a gracious note of gratitude for the person's time and participation in the interview, you are creating good will that could come in handy if you want to talk to that person again or if you want that person to refer you to another expert in the field.