Interviewing
Principles
Reporters
conduct two kinds of interviews:
·
News interview: The purpose is to gather
information to explain an idea event or situation in the news.
·
Profile: The
focus is on an individual. A news peg often is used to justify the profile.
For effective interviews, reporters prepare
carefully, and they ask questions that induce the source to talk freely. Questions
are directed at obtaining information on a theme that the reporter has in
mind before beginning the interview. If a more important theme emerges, the
reporter develops it.
The reporter notes what is said, how it is
said and what is not said. Sources are encouraged by the reporter's gestures
and facial expressions to keep talking.
In the stadium locker room, the half-dressed hurdler was stuffing his warm-up suit and track shoes into a battered black bag. Seated on a bench nearby, a young man removed a pencil and a notepad from a jacket pocket.
"I'm from the paper in town," the young man said. "You looked sharp out there. Mind if I ask you some questions?"
The athlete nodded and continued his packing.
"First time you've been to this part of the West or this city?" the reporter asked. Another nod. This was not going to be easy, the reporter worried. The editor had told him to make sure he brought back a good story for tomorrow's paper, the day the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics would begin its outdoor track meet at the local college. The tall, lithe young man standing in front of the bench was a world record holder in the hurdles, the editor had said, and worth a story for the sports section.
The reporter tried again. "What do you think of our town?" The athlete seemed to see the reporter for the first time.
"I don't know anything about this town," he replied. "I'm here to run. I go to the East coast, the West coast, here. They give me a ticket at school and I get on a bus or a plane and go. My business is to run." He fell silent.
Rebuffed, the reporter struggled to start the athlete talking again. In the 20‑minute interview, the hurdler never really opened up.
Four Principles
Back
in the newsroom, the reporter told the editor about his difficulties. They
seemed to begin with his first question about whether the athlete had been to
the town before, he said. His boss was not sympathetic.
“First, you should have checked the clips and called the college for information
about your man,” the editor said. “That way you could have learned something
about him, his record or his school. You might have used it to break the ice.
Or you could have asked him about the condition of the track, something he
knows about.”
Then the editor softened. He knew that interviewing is not easy for young reporters, that it can be perfected only through practice.
“I
think you have a good quote there about the business of running,” he told the
reporter. “Did you get anything else about the places he's been? That could
make an interesting focus for the piece.”
Yes,
the reporter said, he had managed to draw the hurdler out about where he had
been in the last few months. With the editor's guidance, the reporter managed
to turn out an acceptable story. This
incident illustrates the four principles of interviewing:
1. Prepare
carefully, familiarizing yourself with as much background as possible.
2. Establish
a relationship with the source conducive to obtaining information.
3. Ask
questions that are relevant to the source and that induce the source to talk.
4. Listen
and watch attentively.
Because
much of the daily work of the journalist requires asking people for information,
mastery of interviewing techniques is essential. The four principles underlie
the various techniques the reporter uses. Clearly, the sportswriter's troubles
began when he failed to prepare by obtaining background about the athlete
he was to interview. Lacking background, the reporter was unable to ask questions
that would draw out his source. Furthermore, he had failed to establish a
rapport with the hurdler, so that the session was more like dentistry than
journalism, with the reporter painfully extracting bits and pieces of information
from an unwilling subject. Fortunately, the reporter had listened carefully
so that he managed to salvage something from the interview.
If
we analyze news stories, we will see they are based on information from several
kinds of sources: physical sources, such as records, files and references; the
direct observations of the reporter; interviews with human sources; online
sources. Most stories are combinations of two or three of these sources.
Glance
at today's newspaper. Listen carefully to tonight's evening newscast. You
will be hard‑pressed to find a story that lacks information from an
interview. A front‑page story about a court decision on welfare assistance,
for example, has a quotation from the governor about the consequences of
the decision. A story about the city's plan to put desk officers on the street
quotes the police chief. An obituary contains an employee's comments about
the generosity of his late boss.
Straight
news stories seem to consist of physical sources and observations. Yet if you
examine them closely, you will more often than not find information a source
has supplied through an interview, brief as that interview may have been.
Let's
examine in detail the four principles of interviewing that we mentioned following
the young reporter's frustrating interview with the hurdler.
Preparation
There's
a saying in newsrooms that good interviews follow the two “P's” ¾
persistence and preparation. Persistence is necessary to persuade people to be
interviewed, and it is essential in following a line of questioning that the
subject may find objectionable.
Preparation may consist of a few minutes spent glancing through a story
in last week's newscast before dashing out to interview a congresswoman on
a flying visit to look at the local Veterans Hospital where cutbacks have
affected care. It may be a prolonged examination of clippings, material from
Nexis and articles that databases have turned up for a profile of the new
university president.
Clyde
Haberman, a New York Times columnist,
says “exhaustive research is the basic building block of a successful
interview.”
Research
A.J.
Liebling, a master reporter who moved from the newspaper newsroom to The New Yorker magazine, is quoted in The Most of A.J. Liebling, edited by William
Cole: “The preparation is the same whether you are going to interview a diplomat,
a jockey, or an ichthyologist. From the man's past you learn what questions
are likely to stimulate a response.”
Research
begins with the library's clippings about the subject. If the topic has more
than local importance or if the interviewee is well‑known, The New York Times Index, Facts on File or
a database may have a reference that can be useful. The Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature may list a magazine
article about the topic or the person. Who's
Who in America and other biographical dictionaries can be consulted. Most
of these reference works are on CD‑ROM and are accessible online. People
who know the interviewee can be asked for information.
These
resources provide material for three purposes: (1) They give the reporter
leads to tentative themes and to specific questions. (2) They provide the
reporter with a feel for the subject. (3) They provide useful background.
Rapport
This
was the fifth session Claudia Dreifus was spending with Dan Rather for a profile,
and she knew a mile‑high barrier separated them. Finally, she told Rather,
“This isn't working.” Rather agreed and he invited Dreifus to accompany him
in his pickup from Sam Houston State University in Hunstville, from which
he graduated, south to Wharton, where he was born, and then over to Austin
for dinner.
Back
home, Rather relaxed and opened up, complaining about his ill‑fated
pairing with Connie Chung on “The CBS Evening News” and worrying about the cost‑cutting
that has affected news coverage.
“At
CBS News, we're down to the bone, past the bone, and we've been there a long
time,” he told Dreifus.
With
experienced subjects, interviews usually go smoothly as both stand to gain from
the interview: The subject will have his or her ideas and comments before the
public, and the reporter will have a story.
But
with less‑experienced sources or with those who are reluctant to speak to
the questions the reporter is there to ask, there can be tension. The reporter
has to find ways to reach the source.
Advance
Work
Fred
Zimmerman, a long‑time reporter for The Wall Street Journal, has these suggestions about how to prepare for
an interview:
1.
Do research on the interview topic and the person to be interviewed, not only
so you can ask the right questions and understand the answers, but also so you
can demonstrate to the interviewee that you have taken the time to understand
the subject and also that you cannot easily be fooled.
2,
Devise a tentative theme for your story. A major purpose of the interview will
be to obtain quotes, anecdotes and other evidence to support that theme.
3.
List question topics in advance ¾ as many as you can think of, even though you may
not ask all of them and almost certainly will ask others that you do not list.
4.
In preparing for interviews on sensitive subjects, theorize about what the
person's attitude is likely to be
toward you and the subject you are asking about, What is his or her role in
the event? Whose side is he or she on? What kinds of answers can you logically
expect to your key questions? Based on this theorizing, develop a plan of
attack that you think might mesh with the person's probable attitude and get through his or her probable defenses.
Give and Take The
early stage of the interview is a feeling‑out period. The interviewee
balances his or her gains and losses from divulging information the reporter
seeks, and the reporter tries to show the source the rewards the source will
receive through disclosure of the information‑publicity, respect and the
feeling that goes with doing a good turn.
When
the source concludes that the risks outweigh the possible gains and decides
to provide little or no information or is misleading, the reporter has several
alternatives. At one extreme, the reporter can try to cajole the source into
a complete account through flattery‑or by appearing surprised. At the
other extreme, the reporter can demand information. If the source is a public
official, such demands are legitimate because officials are responsible to
the public. The reporter can tell the source that the story‑and there
will be some kind of story‑will point out that the official refused
to answer questions. Usually, the source will fall into line.
A
public official cannot evade a question with a plea of ignorance. A city controller,
whose job it is to audit the financial records of city agencies and departments,
told a reporter he had no idea whether a bureau had put excess funds in noninterest‑bearing
bank accounts. Told by the reporter it was his business to know that and that
the story would state so, the controller supplied the information.
The Questions
Careful
preparation leads the interviewer to a few themes for the interview, and
these, in turn, suggest questions to be asked. But before the specific questions
are put to the interviewee, a few housekeeping details usually are attended
to, vital data questions. For some interviews, these may involve age, education,
jobs held, family information. For well‑known people, the questions
may be about their latest activities.
Questions
of this sort are nonthreatening and help make for a relaxed interview atmosphere.
Also, they are sometimes necessary because of conflicting material in the
files, such as discrepancies in age or education.
People
want to know these details. Harold Ross, the brilliant and eccentric former
newspaperman who founded and edited The
New Yorker, slashed exasperatedly at the pages of profiles and interviews
that lacked vital data. “Who he?” Ross would scrawl across such manuscripts.
Even
the obvious questions about background can result in fascinating and revealing
answers. For a personality profile, the interviewer asked Whoopi Goldberg
why she adopted Goldberg as her stage name. She replied:
“It
was my mother's idea. It's a name from the family past. There are lots of names
hangin' on our family tree, Jewish, Catholic, Asian . . . Black folks, white
folks. I'm just the all‑American mutt.”
Simple
question. Fascinating quotation.
Direct Questions Most
questions flow from what the reporter perceives to be the theme of the assignment.
A fatal accident: Automatically, the reporter knows that he or she must find
out who died and how and where the death occurred. The same process is used
in the more complicated interview.
A
reporter is told to interview an actor who had been out of work for two years
and is now in a hit musical. The reporter decides that the theme of the story
will be the changes the actor has made in his life. He asks the actor if he
has moved from his tenement walk‑up, has made any large personal purchases
and how his family feels about his being away most nights. These three questions
induce the actor to talk at length.
Another
reporter is to interview a well‑known entertainer. The reporter decides
to ask about the singer's experiences that led him to write songs that call
attention to war, poverty, sexism and racism. “Bread,” says the singer in
answer to the first question the reporter asks. “Money,” he explains. There is a good
market in such songs. The reporter then quickly shifts themes and asks
questions about the economics of popular music and the singer's personal beliefs.
Open‑ and Closed‑Ended
Questions When the sportswriter asked the hurdler, “What
do you think of our town?” he was using what is known as an open‑ended question, which could
have been answered in general terms. The sports editor's suggestion that the
reporter ask the athlete about the condition of the track would have elicited a
specific response‑fast, slow, or slick‑as it was a closed‑ended question.
The
open‑ended question does not require a specific answer. The closedended
question calls for a brief, pointed reply. Applied properly, both have their
merits. Two months before the budget is submitted, a city hall reporter may ask
the city manager what she thinks of the city's general financial situation‑an
open‑ended question. The reply may cover the failure of anticipated
revenues to meet expectations, unusually high increases in construction costs,
higher interest rates and other factors that have caused trouble for the city.
Then the reporter may ask a closed‑ended question, “Will we need a tax
increase?”
As
we have seen, reporters often begin their interviews with open‑ended
questions, which allow the source to relax. Then the closed‑ended
questions are asked, which may seem threatening if asked at the outset of the
interview.
Television
and radio interviews usually end with a closed‑ended question because the
interviewer wants to sum up the situation with a brief reply.
The
reporter who asks only open‑ended questions should be aware of their
possible implications. To some sources, the open‑ended question is the
mark of an inadequately prepared reporter who is fishing for a story.
Some
television reporters tend to ask open‑ended questions, even when a specific
one is more appropriate. A Chicago TV reporter in an interview with orphans
asked a youngster, “Do you wish you had a mother and father?” The most familiar
of all these open‑ended questions asked by poorly prepared TV reporters
is, “How do you feel about . . . ?”
Good
questions are the result of solid preparation, and this requires more than
reading the local newspaper and chatting with authorities. Reporters who hold
to these narrow confines usually operate only in a linear fashion. That is,
today; s coverage is built on yesterday's newspaper stories and the council
meeting of the day before. Good stories‑informative journalism‑are
spurred by the questions that break the chain of events. Remember Copernicus.
All he asked was what would happen if the sun and not the earth were the center
of the universe, and centuries of linear thinking shot off onto a new plane.
Tough Questions Sometimes
a young reporter finds that posing the right question is difficult because
the question might embarrass or offend the interviewee. There is no recourse
but to ask.
Oriana
Fallaci, an Italian journalist famous for her interviews, says that her success
may be the result of asking the world leaders she interviews questions that
other reporters do not ask.
“Some
reporters are courageous only when they write, when they are alone with their
typewriters, not when they face the person in power. They never put a question
like this, 'Sir, since you are a dictator, we all know you are corrupt. In
what measure are you corrupt? “
Remarkably,
heads of state, kings and guerrilla leaders open up to Fallaci. One reason
for this is her presumption that the public is entitled to answers and her
unwillingness to be treated with indifference. When the heavyweight champion
boxer Muhammad Ali belched in answer to one of her questions, she threw the
microphone of her tape recorder in his face.
Another
reason for her effectiveness is “her talent for intimacy,” as one journalist
put it. “She easily establishes an atmosphere of confidence and closeness
and creates the impression that she would tell you anything. Consequently,
you feel safe, or almost safe, to do the same with her,” writes Diana Loercher
in The Christian Science Monitor.
Kissinger the Cowboy In
her interview with Henry Kissinger, the U.S. secretary of state at the time,
Fallaci had him admit that his position of power made him feel like the “lone
cowboy who leads the wagon train alone on his horse.” His image of himself as
the Lone Ranger caused an embarrassed Kissinger to say later that granting
Fallaci the interview was the “stupidest” act in his life.
A
political reporter who accompanied Sen. Don Nickles on a tour of Oklahoma
towns noticed an apparent inconsistency in Nickles' public statements. Nickles
often described himself as a conservative who was tough on federal spending.
Yet in Eufaula, Nickles announced “good news” from Washington, a commitment
of federal funds for a new housing project.
The
reporter then asked if the Republican senator's approach was consistent‑condemning
government spending in one place and welcoming it in another. Nickles' answer:
He would vote against federal housing funds but as long as they were available,
“I will try to see that Oklahoma gets its fair share.”
The
quote ends the story, and the reader is left to decide whether the senator
is an opportunist.
Some
reporters gain a reputation for asking tough questions and not wasting time
on preliminaries. When Jack Anderson, the Washington columnist whose specialty
is exposés, calls a congressman, the politician knows that he is unlikely
to be asked for the text of a speech he is to give in Dubuque. Anderson is
after meatier game.
Intrusive Questions Still,
there are questions that few reporters like to ask. Most of these concern
the private lives of sources‑the mental retardation of a couple's son,
the fatal illness of a baseball player. Some questions are necessary, some
not. The guidelines for relevance and good taste are constantly shifting,
and reporters may find they are increasingly being told to ask questions that
they consider intrusive. This is the age of intimacy.
Reporters
who dislike asking these questions, preferring to spare sources anguish, are
sometimes surprised by the frank replies. A reporter for Newsday was assigned to follow up on an automobile accident in which
a drunken youth without a driver's license ran a borrowed car into a tree.
One of the passengers, a 15‑year‑old girl, was killed. In doing
his follow‑up story, the reporter discovered that most of the parents
were willing to talk because, as one parent said, the lessons learned from
the accident might save lives.
Junk Questions Wendell
Rawls Jr., a veteran newsman, describes his interviewing technique:
Don't
tell people what you know. Ask questions. Then back off. Use diversion. I love
to do that ¾
talk with people about things you're not there to talk to them about. You ask a
question that may be very meaningful. Then you move away from it. I do it
sometimes even if the person doesn't get particularly fidgety, because I don't
want him to think that I think what he has told me is necessarily important to
me. I'll move to another question and say, “What is that on the wall? That's an
interesting sort of. . . .” Whatever. Anything that will divert him, and he will start talking about that. And then maybe ask two or three
questions about junk, and then come back and ask another very pointed question.
Listening, Watching
“Great
reporters are great listeners,” says Carl Bernstein of the Woodward‑Bemstein
reporting team that exposed the Watergate cover‑up that led to President
Nixon's resignation.
The
good listener hears good quotes, revealing slips of the tongue, the dialect
and diction of the source that sets him or her apart.
In
an interview with Luis Manuel Delgado whom Diana Griego Erwin encounters at
a motor vehicle office in Santa Ana, Calif., she finds Delgado unable to tell
the English‑speaking clerks what he needs. Does that bother him? Erwin
asks. Here is an excerpt of their conversation from The Orange County Register:
“I
should know how to speak English,” he said with a quiet simplicity. “This is
the United States.”
“My
kids are very good,” he said. “They get good marks in school. They speak
English. No accent. One wants to be a doctor. When they first came here I told
them to study English and learn it well. Don't let them treat you like a donkey
like they treat your papa.”
I
asked him if it didn't hurt, being treated “como un burro,” as he said.
“No,
I am not a donkey and my children know it. They know I do all this for them.
“They
are proud of me. Nothing anyone else says or does can make me sad when they
have pride in me.
“And
they will never be donkeys.”
Sometimes,
a single quote can capture the person or illuminate the situation the interview
is about. In an interview with a former governor of Arkansas, Sid McMath,
a single quotation told a great deal. First, the background.
School Desegregation In
1957, Gov. Orval Faubus defied a federal court order to desegregate Little
Rock's Central High School. Although President Eisenhower responded by ordering
the 101st Airborne to enforce the court order, Faubus had legitimized resistance
and there was mayhem when the few black students tried to enter the high school.
Faubus was a small‑time politico when McMath plucked him out of
Madison County.
After
the Little Rock spectacle, McMath was asked about Faubus and he replied: “The
sorriest thing I ever did as governor was to build a paved road into Madison
County so Orval Faubus could come down it.”
School Cruelty Listen
to Wendy Williams, a bright 13‑year‑old, talk to a reporter. She
lives in a trailer park in Dixon, Ill. Her teacher recommended her for an
advanced math class, but she said no. “I get picked on for my clothes and
for living in a trailer park,” she said. “I don't want to get picked on for
being a nerd.”
Types
of Interviews
The
major story on page 1 of a September issue of The Hawk Eye in Burlington, Iowa, was about a three‑alarm fire
that destroyed a two‑story building that housed an automobile sales
agency and a body repair shop. The reporter interviewed several people for
information to supplement his observations. Here are the people he interviewed
and a summary of their comments:
·
The
owner: 15 cars destroyed; exact loss as yet unknown.
·
A
fire department lieutenant: The building could not
have been saved when firefighters arrived. They concentrated on saving the
adjoining buildings.
·
An
eyewitness: “I didn't know what it was. It just went all at
once. I seen it a‑burning and I was scared to death.”
·
The
fire chief. The state fire marshal will investigate the
cause of the fire.
News Interview
Although
the reporter was not present when firefighters battled the fire during the
early morning hours, the interviews with the lieutenant and the eyewitness
give his story an on‑the‑scene flavor. Because these interviews
help explain the news event, we describe them as news interviews.
Another
local front‑page story also relies on a news interview. A head‑on
automobile crash on Iowa Route 2 near Farmington took the life of a Van Buren
County woman and caused injuries to four others. The story is based on an interview
with the Iowa Highway Patrol.
The Interviewer's Ground Rules
Both
parties in an interview have certain assumptions and expectations. Generally,
the reporter expects the interviewee to tell the truth and to stand behind
what he or she has told the interviewer. The interviewee presumes the reporter
will write the story fairly and accurately. Both agree, without saying so, that
the questions and answers mean what they appear to mean‑that is, that
there are no hidden meanings.
Having
said this, we must admit to the exceptions. Sources may conceal, evade, distort
and lie when they believe it is to their advantage. The reporter must be alert
to the signs of a departure from truth.
The
rules that govern the reporter's behavior in the interview can be detailed
with some certainty. Reporters, too, conceal, mislead and, at times, lie. Few
reporters justify these practices. Most agree the reporter should:
1. Identify
himself or herself at the outset of the interview.
2. State
the purpose of the interview.
3. Make
clear to those unaccustomed to being interviewed that the material will be
used.
4. Tell
the source how much time the interview will take.
5. Keep
the interview as short as possible.
6. Ask
specific questions that the source is competent to answer.
7. Give
the source ample time to reply.
8. Ask
the source to clarify complex or vague answers.
9. Read
back answers if requested or when in doubt about the phrasing of crucial
material.
10. Insist
on answers if the public has a right to know them.
11. Avoid
lecturing the source, arguing or debating.
12.
Abide
by requests for nonattribution, background only or off‑the-record should
the source make this a condition of the interview or of a statement.
Reporters
who habitually violate these rules risk losing their sources. Few sources will
talk to an incompetent or an exploitative reporter. When the source realizes
that he or she is being used to enhance the reporter's career or to further the
reporter's personal ideas or philosophy, the source will close up.
Sources also risk trouble when they exploit the press. Reporters understand
that their sources will float occasional trial balloons and give incomplete,
even misleading, information. But constant and flagrant misuse of the press
leads to retaliation by journalists.
Earning Trust
When
Sheryl James of the St. Petersburg Times was
interviewing sources for her prize‑winning series on abandoned infants,
she realized that many of those she was interviewing were unaccustomed to
talking to a reporter. “I was dealing with good but somewhat unsophisticated
people,” she says, “who would have been easy to manipulate. It was a challenge
to be sure they understood what I was doing and to keep promises made during
the reporting process that I could have broken with impunity.”
James
focused on a woman who was charged with leaving her baby in a box near a dumpster.
She had to develop a relationship with the woman. “I simply tried to be straightforward
about what I was doing,” James said, “and get her to trust me, to know that
I would keep my word to her.
“Aside
from that, when I finally did interview her, I felt as I do with many people I
interview ¾
I try to establish a relaxed rapport, to be human myself so that they know I'm
not a media monster.”
The News Interview
The
extended news interview can provide readers and listeners with interpretation,
background and explanation. When Douglas Watson, a Washington Post reporter,
was covering the extortion and tax evasion trial of a Baltimore County official,
he heard the testimony of a stock manipulator who was a confessed white‑collar
criminal and political fixer. Watson was told that the witness was being held
by the United States Marshal's Service in a special facility while testifying
for the government. Watson learned there were several of these facilities
¾
known as “safe houses” ¾
and he decided to do a story about them. After the trial, he spent several
hours talking to officials.
“In
the interviews, I learned about other interesting and unreported aspects of the
organization besides 'safe houses.' “ Watson said. “One of the Service's
activities is giving new identities to people who had been government
witnesses. This enables them to start new lives in another part of the
country.”
Here
is how Watson's story begins:
“Restricted
Area ¾ U.S. Govt.
Training Center,” says the sign on the barbed wire-topped fence surrounding a
barracks at Ft. Holabird on the edge of Baltimore.
The
sign doesn't say it, but the barracks is one of several “safe houses” that
the U.S. Marshal's Service operates for the special care and feeding of very
important prisonerwitnesses such as Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt,
political saboteur Donald Segretti and stock manipulator Joel Kline.
Three
to five “safe houses” have been in existence around the country for about
a year, usually holding about 50, mostly white collar, “principals,” as they
like to call themselves. They are federal prisoners who usually were involved
in organized crime and who are considered too valuable as government witnesses
or too endangered by threats to be incarcerated in the usual prison . . .
.
Bomb Designer The
news interview can emphasize an aspect of a continuing story that the reporter
considers to have been overlooked or neglected. When the debate over nuclear
weapons heated up, Jimmy Breslin of the Daily
News interviewed I.I. Rabi, one of the nuclear physicists who built the
first atomic bomb.
Breslin
wondered if Americans weren't too casual about nuclear weapons. A master
journalist, Breslin let Rabi speak:
“You're
a Queens Catholic. Get on your knees and pray,” Breslin quoted Rabi as telling
him.
“Nuclear
weapons are entirely beyond the people in our government today. It doesn't take
much to know that.”
Rabi
recalled that during the 1980 Reagan‑Carter debate, Carter had talked
about his daughter Amy's concern over nuclear weapons. “The newspapers said it
was stupid,” Rabi said. “I never did. It was the little girl who was going to
be killed . . . .”
Rabi
is quoted extensively because he has something to say, has the authority to
say it and says it well. Young reporters are often surprised at how eloquent
the subjects of interviews can be if they are encouraged to speak.
The Profile
The
profile should be seen as a minidrama, blending description, action and
dialogue. Through the words and actions of the subject of the profile, with some
help from the reporter's insertion of background and explanatory matter, the
character is illuminated. Profiles should include plenty of quotations.
For
a retrospective piece on the 1980 championship University of Georgia football
team, U.S. News & World Report interviewed
the starting offense and the punter in the team's Sugar Bowl victory over Notre
Dame. The magazine found: 9 of the 12 did not graduate; none of the 6 black
starters received degrees.
In
a series of miniprofiles, the magazine reported on the players' careers in
school and later. Herschel Walker, the star of the team, left the team after
three years. “I had to worry about what was best for Herschel ¾ and leaving
school was best for Herschel,” he is quoted as saying. He was signed for a reported
$5.5 million by a professional team.
Not
so fortunate was Walker's gridiron blocker, Jimmy Womack. Like Walker, he did
not graduate. But he had no professional career and regrets his role in
Walker's shadow. “If I had gone to Florida State, I could have been in the NFL
somewhere,” he said. There were, the magazine reports, “compensations . . . in
the form of wadded‑up $100 bills, passed along in 'padded handshakes'
from alumni and boosters.” Off the field, he remembered, there were “these
girls that liked football players, not one at a time either.”
Nat
Hudson, who went on to play in the NFL for five years, says that when he goes
to a Georgia game or to the athletic area, he feels “like a social outcast.”
The attitude, he says, is that “we've exploited your talent and we're through
with you, so you go back to your business.” Racism, he says, is the source of
his cool reception.
Ingredients
The profile consists of:
·
The person's background (birth, upbringing,
education, occupation).
·
Anecdotes and incidents involving the subject.
·
Quotes by the individual relevant to his or her
newsworthiness.
·
The reporter's observations.
·
Comments of those who know the interviewee.
·
A news peg, whenever possible.
Interviewing
only the source will lead to a thin, possibly misleading story. When a young
New York Times reporter turned in a piece
about an alcoholic nun who counsels other similarly afflicted nuns, the story
did not move past Charlotte Evans, an editor.
“As
it stands,” Evans told the reporter, “all you have is a moderately interesting
interview with Sister Doody. You sat in a chair, and she sat in a chair and
you had a chat. That's not very good, considering the story material.
“Did
you talk to any nuns in treatment or just out of it?
“Where
is the anguish, the embarrassment, the guilt?
“It
doesn't sound as if you had done any real reporting, digging, pushing. Where
are the people, the quotes, the color?”
For
her profile of Les Brown, a black preacher and radio personality. Itabari
Njeri of The Miami Herald talked
to other ministers, a community activist and the directors of the local chapters
of the Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, as well as to Brown. Assessments of Brown diverged widely: “I will
not allow anyone to manipulate or prostitute the black community, and that
is what Les Brown is doing to the nth degree,” an Urban League official said.
The activist had a different view: “He is different . . . he's got guts. He
is a challenge to the traditional black leaders here.”
Reporting Is the Key
Reporting
makes the profile. Joseph Mitchell, whose profiles for The New Yorker are considered the standard for the form, is
described by Brendan Gill in Here at The
New Yorker, a history of the magazine, as having had the ability to ask
“just the right questions.” The questions would open up his sources, and
Mitchell would closely attend their recollections and reflections. He
encouraged sources to a loquacity no one suspected they possessed. Mitchell
knew that everyone has a good story and that good reporting will flush it out.
In
the dedication of one of his books, Calvin Trillin, a New Yorker writer, wrote, “To the New Yorker reporter who set the standard, Joseph Mitchell.” Note Trillin's
description of Mitchell as a “reporter.” Trillin, like all good writers, knows
that reporting is at the heart of the journalist's work.
Quotes, Quotes
.
. . . As the novelist Elmore Leonard says, “When people talk, readers listen.”
In interviews, the writer listens for the telling remark that illuminates
the person or the situation. Leonard says he lets his characters do the work
of advancing his story by talking. He gets out of the way.
“Readers
want to hear them, not me.”
Listen
to the singer Lorrie Morgan talk about her problems: After her husband, the
singer Keith Whitley, died of alcohol poisoning, Morgan was only offered slow,
mournful ballads by her songwriters, she said in an interview with The Tennessean of Nashville.
“I
mean, it was all kinds of dying songs,” she said. But then she fell in love
with Clint Black's bus driver, and she decided to change her tunes.
“I
said, 'I'm not going to do that. I'm not basing my career on a tragedy.' I live
the tragedy every day without it being in my music.” Her life, she said, has turned
around, thanks to her new love. “He's a wonderful, wonderful guy. This guy is
very special, and I'm into him real bad.” However, not too long afterward
Lorrie’s love life took a detour ¾
her affections switched to a politician.
For
reasons unknown, reporters have a tendency to paraphrase rather than to quote
directly. In fact, several articles
have appeared in journalism publications advocating paraphrasing as an efficient
way to tell a story. Efficient? Maybe. But so are telegrams. For reader interest,
for enthralled reading and viewing, direct contact with the individual interviewed
is best achieved by letting interviewees speak.
Research
shows that quotations are useful. S. Shyan Sundar of Pennsylvania State University
found “the credibility and quality of stories with quotations to be significantly
higher than identical stories without quotations.”
Actions Can Be Revealing
Watch
the dean of students as he discusses a student disciplinary case. As he answers
your questions, is he fiddling nervously with a paper clip, leaning back in his
chair, looking at the papers on his desk? Is he tense, relaxed?
Do
the quarterback's fellow players joke with him in the locker room, or do they
avoid his company?
Does
the grief seem genuine or forced?
Sometimes,
sources reveal themselves as much, perhaps more so, in their actions as they do
in their statements.
The
revealing profile blends background, quotations and observations.
Diversity
We
live in an entertainment‑driven period, and the media reflects this
preoccupation. Look at the covers of magazines. Most of them display a popular
personality. (A side comment: In order to be able to profile these stars,
the magazine usually allows the personality to choose the questions that will
be asked, is given approval rights over the photos to be used and often is
shown the piece before publication.)
The journalist who wants to show the diversity of American society has
a more fascinating story to tell.
Listen
to Linda Raisovich‑Parsons, one of the first women to go into the coal
mines, talk to Bharati Sadasivam:
I
went into the mines when I was 18 years old and had just finished high school.
There was not a whole lot of career opportunities for a girl back then in West
Virginia. My father was a coal miner. He had multiple sclerosis and I didn't
want to burden him with the expense of a college education. . . .
Initially,
he didn't like the idea because he didn't want his daughter working in that
kind of environment. But when he saw that I was not just testing the waters and
was determined to make a go of it, he taught me the ropes and looked out for
his baby daughter. . . .
There
was a lot of heavy lifting and carrying to do and that was what I found the
most difficult. Most of the men took the position that well, if you're here,
you've got to pull your weight and I was determined that no one was going to
prove that I wasn't able to do the job.
Sadasivam's
magazine article consists entirely of direct quotes. She allows Raisovich‑Parsons
to tell her story. After several years in the mines, the United Mine Workers
union offered her a job as a mine inspector. She would have been the first
female inspector. At first, it was not easy.
There
were some safety committees that simply couldn't accept a woman and would
bypass me and go to my male co‑workers. And I often got the same reactions
from the coal companies. But there were others that were more accepting of
me. I found the older miners more helpful and respectful than the younger
ones. Sexual harassment was a problem initially but we've grown with these
men and I think we're just one of the crew now.
I
found women on the whole more safety‑conscious than men. They took all
precautions, made sure that all the equipment was working properly. You find
a very low accident rate among women.
I'm
comfortable here, but there are times when I've felt like a token woman. But
the few women that are there are very outspoken, the type of people who get
out and get involved because they've had to be fighters and scrappers to get
the job. I have a button from a women miners' conference that says, “Just
Another Mouthy Union Woman.”
Sadasivam
wrote the story just this way, a first‑person account.
Summing Up
Good
interviews make for good stories. They provide insights into people and events.
Here is some advice from practitioners of the trade,
Helen
Benedict, author of a book on writing profiles, says: “People who are
interviewed a lot get tired of the same old questions. You want to stand out as
an interviewer and get a good story, and that depends on preparation and
intelligence.”
Benedict writes out her questions and takes her list
with her to the interview. During the interview, she gently guides her subject
after establishing his or her trust. “Don't interrupt too much,
and don't challenge too early so the person is put on the defensive. Don't
talk too much.”
She
likes to interview in her subjects' homes so she can observe their clothes,
objects on walls and desks‑their taste. She watches their mannerisms, how
they move, sit, drink their coffee, answer the phone, speak to others.
To
get at the person behind the personality, good interviewers talk to the
friends, associates, relatives of the subject. Samuel Johnson, the brilliant
18thcentury English writer, advised writers that “more knowledge may be gained
of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than
from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his
funeral.”
Some Guides
Fred
L. Zimmerman, Wall Street Journal reporter and editor, suggests the
following:
1. Almost
never plunge in with tough questions at the beginning. Instead, break the ice,
explain who you are, what you are doing, why you went to him or her. A touch of
flattery usually helps.
2. Often
the opening question should be an open‑ended inquiry that sets the source
off on his or her favorite subject. Get the person talking, set up a
conversational atmosphere. This will provide you with important clues about his
or her attitude toward you, the subject and the idea of being interviewed.
3. Watch
and listen closely. How is he or she reacting? Does he seem open or secretive?
Maybe interrupt him in the middle of an anecdote to ask a minor question about
something he is leaving out, just to test his reflexes. Use the information you
are obtaining in this early stage to ascertain whether your preinterview
hunches about him were right. Use it also to determine what style you should
adopt to match his mood. If he insists upon being formal, you may have to
become more businesslike yourself. If he is relaxed and expansive, you should
be too, but beware of the possibility the interview can then degenerate into a
formless conversation over which you have no control.
4. Start
through your questions to lead him along a trail you have picked. One question
should logically follow another. Lead up to a tough question with two or three
preliminaries. Sometimes it helps to create the impression that the tough
question has just occurred to you because of something he is saying.
5. Listen
for hints that suggest questions you had not thought of. Stay alert for the
possibility that the theme you picked in advance is the wrong one, or is only a
subsidiary one. Remain flexible. Through an accidental remark of his you may
uncover a story that is better than the one you came for. If so, go after it
right there.
6. Keep
reminding yourself that when you leave, you are going to do a story. As she
talks, ask yourself: What is my lead going to be? Do I understand enough to
state a theme clearly and buttress it with quotes and documentation? Do I have
enough information to write a coherent account of the anecdote she just told
me?
7. Do
not forget to ask the key question‑the one your editors sent you to ask,
or the one that will elicit supporting material for your theme.
8. Do
not be reluctant to ask an embarrassing question. After going through all the
preliminaries you can think of, the time finally arrives to ask the tough
question. Just ask it.
9. Do
not be afraid to ask naive questions. The subject understands that you do not
know everything. Even if you have done your homework there are bound to be
items you are unfamiliar with. The source usually will be glad to fill in the
gaps.
10. Get
in the habit of asking treading‑water questions, such as “What do you
mean?” or “Why's that?” This is an easy way to keep the person talking.
11. Sometimes it helps to change the
conversational pace, by backing off a sensitive line of inquiry, putting your
notebook away, and suddenly displaying a deep interest in an irrelevancy. But
be sure to return to those sensitive questions later. A sudden pause is
sometimes useful. When the subject finishes a statement just stare at her maybe
with a slightly ambiguous smile, for a few seconds. She often will become
uneasy and blurt out something crucial.
12. Do
not give up on a question because the subject says “no comment.” That is only
the beginning of the fight. Act as if you misunderstood her and restate the
question a little differently. If she still clams up, act as if she
misunderstood you and rephrase the question again. On the third try, feign
disbelief at her refusal to talk. Suggest an embarrassing conclusion from her
refusal and ask if it is valid. Later, ask for “guidance” in tracking down the
story elsewhere, or suggest nonattribution, or get tough ¾ whatever you
think might work.
13. Occasionally
your best quote or fact comes after the subject thinks the interview is over.
As you are putting away your notebook and are saying goodbye the subject often
relaxes and makes a crucial but offhand remark. So stay alert until you are out
the door. (Sid Moody of the AP says that interviewing gems can come after the
notebook is snapped shut. “I've found almost as a rule of thumb that you get
more than you've gotten in the interview.”)
These
are starting points only, not absolute rules. They, and the material in the
next chapter, will get you going. After a while, you will develop your own
interviewing style. Zimmerman says, “Pick the techniques you think you can use
and then practice them. Eventually, they'll become so natural you won't have to
think about them.”
Further
Reading
Benedict,
Helen. Portraits in Print: The Art of
Writing Profiles. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
Capote,
Truman. In Cold Blood. New York: New
American Library, 1971.
Fallaci,
Oriana. Interview with History. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1976.
Garrett,
Annette. Interviewing: Its Principles and
Methods. New York: Family Association of America, 1982.
Kadushin,
Alfred. The Social Work Interview. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
Mitchell,
Joseph. Up in the Old Hotel. New
York: Vintage Books, 1993.
Note: The books by
Garrett and Kadushin, which are used in schools of social work, are excellent
guides for journalists.