Interviewing is a skill that comes with a lot of practice, and writing good interview pieces is an entirely different genre altogether from most news articles. While practice is the only sure way of improving your skills, the following tips may help and make the job far easier.

1. Strive for accuracy
You will seldom get a chance for a second interview if your equipment malfunctioned or you didn’t get anything usable. While calling afterwards and asking for clarification or expansion on a point is not unusual, a botched interview can frequently render you in a bad place with regards to deadlines. Worse, a misquote can often be far more damaging than not including a source at all—damaging to not only the reputation of the reporter, but also that of article’s subject and even the publication itself. 

With that in mind, conducting interviews professionally is not only important for the sake of the piece, it is in fact necessary for many other factors as well. A digital audio recorder can be purchased for under $40. Many mp3 players have voice recorders built right in—you might already have one. Use this technology to create a record of the interview, but don’t rely exclusively on it. Carry a notepad and a pen to record memorable quotes (in scribbly shorthand if necessary), and estimations of what time in the recording they’re said. 

Keep electronic copies of all interview as a precaution against libel. If you can prove that you were merely reporting what was said, you’re usually in the clear. Buy extra batteries.

All that said...

2. Respect requests for “off the record.”

Turn off your recorder when somebody wants information off the record. This is for your protection as well as theirs. When dealing with sensitive information (as is often the case in stories relating to drug culture), having a source on file with sensitive or unreleased information can be dangerous if your recorder gets lost or stolen. On that note, if dealing with potentially damaging information, regularly move all interviews from your recorder to a safe place on your hard-drive (Encrypted if possible) to protect your sources in event of theft.

Liabilities aside, it’s important that the person you’re interview is trusting enough to be open with you. If they don’t want to put something on the record, you can’t use it in print. Period. However, you can act on that information and try to find another source, who is willing to comment.

3. Use open questions, and don’t lead

Questions that can be answered with “Yes” or “No” are closed questions. If it’s answerable with a single sentence, they’re still rather close-ended. Strive for questions that are open enough to illicit a meaningful and intelligent response. Make the person think a little. Instead of asking, “Do you think the Drug War has had a positive effect on society?” ask instead, “What effects has the Drug War had and how do you think society’s changed as a result?” Two-parters are good; they allow a person to cover a lot of distance and come full-circle, though be prepared to remind them of what the second part is.

Don’t lead your questions. Saying something like, “Given how indices of drug availability to high school students have remained constant over the last twenty years, do you think the War on Drugs has been successful in preventing youth from trying drugs?” will likely result in a defensive response if asked to, say, a politician. Even if you disagree fundamentally with the person being interviewed, strive for impartiality. That question might be better worded, “Some would argue the War on Drugs is failing to prevent youth from trying drugs, given that indices  of drugs availability to high school youth have generally remained constant. What is your response to these people?” The beauty of this wording is that you can be one of those “Some who argue” and still appear impartial and objective. And, better yet, you’ll get quotes that are more interesting and less guarded.

4. Don’t be narcissistic

You are the reporter. You are reporting. You are NOT the center of attention. The focus is on the person you are interviewing. Don’t use an interview to pander to your personal distastes and afflictions. Do not use the interview to advertise your latest project. Don’t use the interview to say, “Hey everyone, look at me! I’m interviewing So-and-So, aren’t I cool?” That is what a narcissist does.

Being a narcissist entails trying to build a cult of personality in which the material of your writing is more important than its actual substance. Please realize, by being in print media, you are not a celebrity. The only celebrities in this day and age are burnout movie stars and obese people dancing to Slovakian pop music on YouTube. Do you really want to be an obese person dancing to Slovakian pop music on YouTube? Do you? Do you?!

Your audience wants to know about your subject—NOT you. Your feelings, your love for all humanity, that insightful thought you had en route to your destination, your optimism—repeat with me—is all secondary to presenting the responses to the questions asked. If you’re writing more about the ride to your destination than the destination itself, you should maybe reevaluate how much attention you think you’re paying to your topic.

If writing a LiveJournal entry to help you better remember your vacation, okay. But for things intended for a larger audience, realize that you’re probably less interesting than you think you are. Further, by virtue of being the person requesting an interview, you are less important than your subject. Give them the respect they deserve.

5. You are no Tolkien

Try not to make an interview sound like a travelogue. Saying, “And then I did this and then I did that and then I did this and then I did that and then I interviewed So-and-So, ‘Hi So-and-So!’ ‘Hi there! I’m going to give you four generic quotes!’ and then I did this and then I did that...” gets fairly long, as does supplying endless information about the temperature, the colour of the leaves, whether you were feeling hungover, the slowness of traffic, et cetera. Your readership has no knowledge of that blustery morning, and unless you’re willing to totally destroy the article’s flow by providing a more detailed description, never will. Further, the weather on the day of the interview is almost always totally irrelevant, unless you do the interview outside and your subject gets struck by lightning or something. Also, if that happens: buy rubber underwear and send me an email, 'cause that would be one hell of a story.

6. Do some research before the interview.

If interviewing somebody in charge of an organization, asking them basic questions already answered dozens of times by their website shows a lack of organization and preparation. Asking a band what that number in their name stands for, for instance, is a bad question because they’ve probably been asked it dozens of times before. Don’t ask questions just to fill space.

Strive for open-ended questions that will illicit a response that is not only thoughtful, but also unique. Your readers are probably less interested in random factoids posted already on Wikipedia than they are in getting a new and spontaneous idea out of your source. Ask questions that compliment your source’s knowledge. For example, after maybe a few questions about music and upcoming projects, perhaps it might be relevant to ask a politically-motivated punk band a question about where they see the world going in the next few years. Granted, the depth and width of responses (IE, how developed and how multifaceted responses are, respectively) depends a lot on how much time you have with your source. Be conscious of time limitations.

7. Decide on a writing style and stick to it.

There are about two standard ways to write an interview piece: the Weave and an ad-verbatim transcript. The Weave involves using the body of the text to create a framework of information that select quotes can be dropped into. This is usually more appropriate for news stories with a lot of sources, or stories that require background not provided by the source. The advantage of this is that the writer can word information however he or she wants and then use the source’s quotes to verify and validate the given information.

Alternately, an ad-verbatim transcript is a question-answer form of interview writing more dependent upon the quality of the interview itself than the author’s writing skill. If doing this, two points to consider are accuracy and length. It’s really easy to generate 800 words from a transcribed interview without actually saying anything. Also, a small introductory paragraph about the person you're interview can allow you to summarize some of the basic information, letting you cut some of the more banal introductory questions. The questions used should make your subject seem interesting—not like a dork. Unless your intent is to make somebody look stupid (Which it never should be), don't include "Uhs," "Ums," and pauses in your transcript unless necessary. There's a very fine line to tread when editing ad verbatim transcripts, but sometimes quotes can be trimmed so that sentences have more flow—for instance, in the case where the subject starts a sentence, gets a few words in, stops, and starts over. Instead of writing the first few words of the uncompleted sentence, begin his new sentence at the last period. Granted, your mileage may vary; feel free to email an editor if you have a particular question, they can perhaps better advise you.

In closing, there's no way I can cover all the intricacies of interviewing in one help article, however, I hope I've provided some good tips to get you started. Once again, if you have any questions whatsoever, your editors are always there to help and would love to answer your questions.

-Ændrew.

       

Written by :

Ændrew Rininsland