Simple Article

Interviewing technique. Literary editing and stylistics devices on the interview.

Kushaliyeva Tamiris, 209 group

Interviewing Techniques for a Good Journalism Interview

To ensure a fruitful interview, interviewers must follow the correct techniques of interviewing. Of course, there are no hard and fast rules to apply to a journalist's interview; however, these are generic techniques that may be employed.

It is important to frame a structure for the interview. Prepare questionnaire, identify issues, and decide the approach well in advance.
Make sure you know where you want the interview to lead. Prepare questions in such a way that it can extract specific information from the interviewee. Unprepared ness will trigger confusion, chaos and a lot of blind questioning.
Journalism has to deal with a lot of harsh facts and scandalous truths. Ask about their opinion for such issues. Critically examine the facts presented by the candidates and ask them to prove their point or claims.
Do not hesitate to prod further if the candidate provides less information or fails to justify anything that he has claimed. It is the responsibility of the interviewer to keep the candidates talking. Meanwhile, make sure that you do so without being intimidating to the candidate. That way, you may risk losing a good candidate.
While it is ok to ask intuitive questions, it is also important to accept their ideas and views with an open mind. Opinions differ from one another. Hence, respect each candidate's point of view and try to see it from a different dimension.
Introduce a few anecdotes to lighten up intense moments. Heated conversations are quite possible during a journalist's interview. Loosen up these tight knots with amicable narration of small, relevant incidents. Take care not to overdo it. It will simply ruin the seriousness of the interview.
Taking notes is a good technique to help you to review the overall performance of the candidates. Notes also aid in comparing the skills and performance reviews of the job seekers from one another. However, make the candidates aware of your note taking before commencing the interview, in order to avoid unnecessary nervousness.
Pay minute attention to paralanguage or the manner of speech. Usage of fillers, repetitions of words etc. must be kept under check if the interview is conducted for audio journalism. The same issues can be neglected if it is an interview for print media.
Similarly, if the interview is being conducted for video journalism, check out the body language of the candidate. Too many hand movements, changes in facial expressions, fidgeting around with nearby things are not good signs for video journalism.

Interview tips for journalists

1: Never give an interviewee questions in advance. It's fine to give a general idea about the interview themes, but being too specific may limit what you can ask in the interview. It also risks being overtaken by events and allows the interviewee to rehearse answers.

2: Be on time. There's nothing worse than keeping someone.

3: Always check that your equipment is working and that you have enough batteries, tapes, discs etc before you leave the office.

4: Treat the interviewee with respect. A warm but not over-enthusiastic greeting is a good start. The interviewee deserves respect whether they are a president or a man or woman in the street.

5: Take control of the location. It's your interview. You need to choose a place that isn't too noisy and where there are not too many distractions.

6: You are not the centre of attention. You are there to get the perspective of the interviewee, not give your own.

7: Do the research you need to, but don't try to cram it all into your questions. Put yourself in the shoes of a member of your audience before you start the interview. If they were here, what would they ask?

8: Ask the most important question first. The more pressed the interviewee is, the less time they will have and the more likely that they will cut the interview short.

9: The interview is a conversation. It is not a confrontation. You are not there to make the interviewee look stupid.

10: Try to avoid looking at notes. If you look at your notes, the interviewee may be distracted. And it's difficult for you to read and listen at the same time.

11: Maintain eye contact at all times. Keep your body language in check. If you nod your head, your subject may take this to mean that you agree with them and so there is no need to explain further. You may miss the chance to discover more. If you shake your head, or recoil with a shocked facial expression, you risk making your subject clam up. You will have shown them that you find their views offensive and so they are likely to stop short of saying even more in the same vein.

12: Try to ask a maximum of three or four questions. An interview is not a fishing expedition. If you can't get to the essence of what you want the interviewee to say in three or four questions, change the questions.

13: There are only six basic questions. Who? What? Where? When? How? Why?

14: Shorter questions are better than longer ones. Never ask more than one question at a time, combining questions makes it easy for the interviewee to avoid answering one altogether but without seeming to. Be as direct as you can without being rude.

15: Be sure of your facts. There's nothing worse than being told you are wrong by an interviewee – especially when it's live.

16: Listen. The interviewee might want to use your interview to say something important that you were not expecting.

17: If the interviewee's not happy with the way they answered a particular question, don't give in to appeals for them to do it again – unless there is a factual error in the answer or there is a risk of serious confusion.

18: At the end of the interview, no matter how difficult the interviewee has been, always say thank you

19: Always check the interview has been recorded before the interviewee leaves. It's much harder to re-do the interview if there's been a technical fault.

20: When you're editing, don't take answers out of context. That's dishonest.