Good Journalism is dependent on often a total strangers cooperation. The extent of this cooperation and its success for an article happens during the interview. How a journalist manages an interview affects the final product more than any other component. In other words, its near impossible to create a strong article without a good interview.
Bellow is a collaboration of tips I have found from various professional journalism websites, such as; matadornetwork.com and BBC Journalism Academy.
1. Find a good location
- Suggest a place with some relevance to either your topic or your interviewee.
- A sense of context will assist the interview as well as making the participant feel more comfortable.
2. Know what questions you are going to ask
- Write your questions down.
- Come to the interview with more questions than you intend to ask, this will be your savior if the flow starts to go stale.
3. Balance conversation and interviewing
- The interviewee is more likely to open up if the questions are proceeded by light conversation.
- Also makes the whole experience more enjoyable and often will produce a better result.
4. What is your medium?
- Audio or video - ask two part questions for longer responses and for less prompting by you on the tape recorder.
- For print you can be more conversational and verbally encouraging but ask shorter questions for better quotes later on.
5. Be persistent
- If you're not getting the answer you want, change the question if need be, don't be afraid to be a little annoying.
6. Finally, Endure the awkward silences
- Though cringe worthy at times, give your interviewee a chance to think and respond before taking over.
With all things practice makes perfect, sculpting the ideal interview technique is a challenge that gets easier the more time you do it, so get out there and give it a go :)
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