08-29-2006

Tips for Conducting Interviews

NPR recently ran a story about John Sawatsky, a journalist who has put a lot of thought and study into how to conduct interviews. While teaching at a university in Canada, Sawatsky had his students ask some of the same questions over and over to different people. It became apparent that certain questions consistently worked well and others consistently fell flat, regardless who was being interviewed. Sawatsky began to refine the questioning techniques and eventually distilled them down into a few simple rules.

Sawatsky’s rules are simple, but he says they get broken all the time: Don’t ask yes-or-no questions, keep questions short and avoid charged words, which can distract people.

I’m a fan of well done interviews. Interviewers like Terry Gross, Charlie Rose, and Bob Costas can bring out some of the best in people. I have only done a few interviews myself—mostly for the profiles I’ve written—but I find them to be challenging and fun. As Sawatsky suggests, I try to put a lot of thought into the questions I ask.

If the NPR story on Sawatsky leaves you wanting to know more about his interview techniques, check out the additional audio clips on the NPR website. One of the clips includes an additional hour of David Folkenflik’s interview with Sawatsky.

The American Journalism Review also ran a story on Sawatsky a while ago. The AJR story included a sidebar with a more details of his do’s and don’ts. For even more information on interviewing techniques, the Poynter Institute has a thorough collection of links and references on interviewing.

Posted by Matt in communication, writing | RSS 2.0

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