CONDUCTING THE INTERVIEW

It is important to put your sources at ease. Being interviewed on camera is unusual and can be a very uncomfortable experience for many people. The term interview alone can create feelings of stress. You may want to refer to interviews as chats or conversations to reduce any anxiety for your sources (“I want to chat about how your business is doing.”). But always remember that interviews are not normal conversations. Interviews are purposefully con- ducted to produce clear and useful responses.

Figure 5.54 An interview with the superintendent of schools for a story about technology and education.

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Prepare your sources for the interview. In many cases, your sources have not been interviewed on camera before. To make my sources more comfortable, I try to explain as much of the interview process to them as possible. Making the production process transparent can help sources to feel more at ease (“Sorry for all the lights, but they will make the room brighter and make you look great.”).

Give your sources a general description of the interview topics, but do not give exact questions in advance. You do not want sources to give answers that have been too rehearsed or prepared. Also, give your interviewee an accurate sense of how long the interview will last. Your source may become agitated or annoyed if the interview lasts for 2 hours when they were expecting to go for 30 minutes.

Warming up your sources. The first question I always ask my source is: “Can you please say and spell your name?” Having your source say her name will help you to pronounce it correctly if you need to narrate the story. It is also good to have the correct spelling of your source’s name.

You can ease into the interview with one or two safe questions. “What is your title here, and how long have you been with the company?” You may already know the answers, but these questions can be considered practice swings or warm ups for your source. These questions will give her a chance to get acclimated to the lights, the camera, and you. Do not ask too many basic, fact-finding questions that should have already been asked during your reporting. On-camera interviews should be used to elicit questions that are illustrative, emotional, or provide narrative detail.

Organize your questions. You cannot predict how your sources will answer your questions, but you can keep your line of questions organized and focused. Organize your questions by date and time if you need clear and sequential explanations of events. Organize your questions by themes. For example, when interviewing an entrepreneur, ask all questions about her education and training first, followed by questions about the challenges of running her business. Finish off the interview with questions about her plans for the future of the company. Avoid jumping around too much during your line of questioning. This may confuse your source, and it may also make you forget to ask about important questions.

Good questions get good answers. Repeat and follow up on questions until you get answers that are illustrative, emotional, or provide enough narrative detail. For example, you may be interviewing an entrepreneur for a business story:

Question:

How challenging is running your own business?

Interviewee: It’s really hard. It’s a big task. “It’s really hard. It’s a big task” is not a useful answer. What does “hard”

or “big task” specifically mean? Repeat or modify your question until you

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elicit a stronger answer. This requires you to actively listen to the responses. Inexperienced reporters will accept weak answers and quickly move on to the next question. You must discipline yourself to focus on both your questions and your source’s responses. Push for more specific and meaningful answers:

Question: Can you be more specific? What are some of the big tasks you deal with?

Interviewee: As a startup, I have to do everything myself. I am the accountant, head of HR, CEO, and the cleaning crew. I have to do the spreadsheets and take out the garbage. It’s

a lot for one person. At this point, you have gotten some more specific information about the

interviewee’s business life. Now you can follow up with a question to elicit a more emotional or descriptive response.

Question: Describe what that feels like. Interviewee: It can be great, but most days it’s frustrating. It feels like

I’m out in the ocean and swimming to shore but the tide keeps on pushing me back. There’s always more to do.

“It feels like I’m out in the ocean and swimming to shore, but the tide keeps pushing me back” is a particularly strong quote. It is descriptive, emotional, and is much more meaningful than “It’s really hard.” Asking open-ended questions such as “Describe what if feels like” will, in most cases, produce strong responses.

During interviews, your sources may go off on tangents that are not useful for your story. For example, while answering questions about working long nights at her startup business, your source may begin to talk about how dif- ficult her professors were in graduate school. Her professors and her graduate school experience are not germane to your story. You must be polite but firm and redirect the questioning back to your original points and topics:

Reporter: Grad school seems really tough. But I have a question about how you came up with your product idea.

Avoid yes or no questions. When interviewing your subject, avoid asking yes or no questions. An answer of “yes” or “no” is not editorially meaningful and can rarely be used in post-production. Ask your subject open-ended questions that will result in complete answers. For example, “Do you like the President?” can be reworded as “Can you talk about the President’s recent performance?” Open-ended questions tend to result in more complete answers. They also provide you with opportunities to refine and repeat your question, or to ask a more direct follow-up.

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Figure 5.55 An interview with a student for a story about technology and education.

Exercise

Rewrite these “yes or no” questions. Your new questions should be open- ended to elicit a more specific or meaningful answer.

Is it hard to own a company?

Is nursing a rewarding occupation?

Are you going to vote for this candidate?

Is education reform important to you?

Do you feel safe in your neighborhood?

Silence is golden. During our regular conversations, we tend to give audible cues to signal that we are listening and that we understand what is being said. “Uh huh. Yep. Hmmmm.” During an interview, you must be silent when the subject is speaking. Any words or sounds that you make will be mixed in with your subject’s answers, making them unusable in post-production. When your subject is answering, maintain eye contact. Nod silently or react with facial expressions to signal that you are paying attention. This will help you to maintain a connection with your subject without affecting your audio recording.

Avoid the urge to ask a question immediately after your source has finished the previous one. If you feel that your source has more information even though he has stopped talking, pause for a moment. This awkward silence

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will often compel your subject to answer the question differently or in greater detail.

Wrapping up. At the end of the interview, always ask your source if you have missed anything or if he has anything else he would like to discuss. This will give your source the opportunity to share new information, direct you to other sources, or to highlight points you did not assume to be important.

Once your interview is over, review a few minutes of your interview footage in the camera to see that your interview was recorded properly. Occasionally,

a camera will fail to record footage or the interview will be corrupted. Checking your footage immediately will give you an opportunity to reset the camera and ask your questions again, depending on the availability of your source. While this can be very embarrassing, correcting your mistakes right away is much more efficient and practical than rescheduling an interview.

CONDUCTING THE INTERVIEW