Channeling Terry Gross
By Features Editor Shelah Miner
I’m the kind of girl who has to psych herself up for a day or two before calling our teenage babysitter. I’m not good at small talk, particularly when I don’t know the person I’m talking to very well. When I became Segullah‘s Features Editor this summer, I worried about whether or not I’d be up to the task of giving support and feedback to our writers, but I stewed and sweated over my responsibility to conduct an interview for our “Faces of Latter-day Saint Women” feature. I hadn’t done interviewing since my high school journalism days, when my “interviews” were usually notes passed in physics class.
The night before my first Segullah interview, I had one of those restless nights that hearkened back to my college finals days. I dreamed about getting lost on the way to the interview, about getting yelled at, and about showing up without any pants on. When I left the next day, I had a sheet of neatly-typed questions, straightforward directions, a very cool mini tape recorder, and a great wingman (our Assistant Editor, Emily Milner, who came along for moral support). And while we were with the interviewee, things seemed to go well. She was easy to talk to and interested in answering our questions, and we got lots of good material to write about.
Well, we thought we got lots of good material to write about. My new fancy tape recorder? It captured only about 1/3 of our conversation from that afternoon (the tape snapped and it looked like it was still recording). Emily and I managed to piece together a feature that focused on that material we did get, and I think we pulled it off (we’ll see when it runs in our upcoming issue), but I put the article to bed feeling like it could have been better than it was.
Subsequent interviews have gotten easier. Over the last couple of months I’ve had the pleasure interviewing Marilyn Brown through an ongoing series of emails, and find myself still shooting her off little notes when I come across something I think she might find interesting, but I have a hard time feeling confident as an interviewer. I listen to Terry Gross and Krista Tippett on my iPod while I run, and over the last six months, my focus has shifted from listening to the interviews so I could learn and be entertained to listening to the interviews so I can focus on what kinds of questions Gross and Tippett ask and how they engage their interview subjects.
For the experienced interviewers out there– what are your tricks of the trade? How do you prepare? How do you break the ice with the people you interview? And, most important of all, how do you decide who to interview?
And for you interview readers–what do you like to hear about in an interview? What are some of the favorite interviews you’ve read, and what made them good?
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January 5th, 2009 at 8:13 am
I have to say I’ll listen closer closer to On Point during my morning travel, the dialogue always makes me want to call in.
I always like to know about inspirations, realtionships, and their process of writing and creating- it is so personal and fascinating. I know for my art inspiration comes in interesting ways and most of my pieces have stories behind them or hidden symbols that no one knows.
January 5th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Shelah, first of all, your shift in ways of listening to Krista and Terry are smart. How you listen does matter, and you’re doing it.
Also, please remember that what you hear on the radio is highly produced — internal edits are made, questions are cleaned up, p’s are unpopped, and so on. That’s one of the reasons we started making each one of Krista’s unedited interviews available for download. I highly recommend listening to some of these mp3s. I’ve learned a lot from just paying attention to Krista’s approach to interviewing and her stylistic conventions. Most important though, she really listens.
Oh, good interviewers like Krista practice their craft. Before she ever started on radio, she was interviewing hundreds of people for an oral history project more than a decade ago. All the best in you endeavors.
January 5th, 2009 at 8:23 am
The best thing I’ve heard about interviewing (in the context of oral family history): Boring answers are the result of asking boring questions.
I think the key for Krista Tippet’s successful interviews is that she obviously thinks deeply about the subject before her interviews. She seems prepared to ask interesting follow up questions. Keeps her interviews alive.
That’s all I have for now. I’m waiting for others to answer this most interesting question.
January 5th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Trent, thanks so much for your advice to check out those mp3s. I plan to. And so cool that you popped over to our new little blog! I love Speaking of Faith and appreciate so much what you all do with the program.
Shelah, I agree that giving interviews is tough, tricky business. I don’t have much advice because I haven’t done many interviews (although I would like to do more for Irreantum). I’ve found in the last year that responding to interviews is *also* a tough, tricky business. I still laugh (well, ruefully, and in my head) when I think of some of the strange quotes that were printed out of context in a SL Trib article after my book came out. But both William Morris at A Motley Vision and our own Ben Crowder at Mormon Artist did a great job interviewing me via email. (William, especially, has done a ton of good interviews on his blog.)
January 5th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Trent- Thanks for stopping by the blog! I’ve listened to several of the unedited interviews and they’re so interesting. Our book club recently read Kate Braestrup’s Here if You Need Me, and I used pieces of Krista’s interview in leading the discussion. I probably should have taken my cues for my ill-fated tape recorded interview this summer from the “can you hear me?” process that always goes on at the beginning of the unedited interviews. It’s really fun to see the behind the scenes view of everything. I’ve also noticed that that order of the questions is sometimes different in the unedited version than in the final product. It was liberating for me to realize that I could switch around the order of my presentation of the material in order to make the final product flow better.
Angela– thanks for the recommendation to check out William and Ben’s interviews. I appreciate it!
January 5th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
At my previous job, I did a lot of interviews with university faculty, staff and administrators. Some for information gathering and some for publication.
One thing I always like to do is make sure I have a good mix of philosophy (thoughts about general issues and trends in the field), work process/results (what the results of whatever project we’re talking about and how those results were arrived at), and influences (although there are cleverer ways to go about this — some people get tired of talking over and over again about who their influences are).
I tend to insert myself too much into face-to-face interviews, often making observations, telling related anecdotes, sharing biographical details. On the other hand in most cases, that tends to make my interviewees feel more at ease and conversational — which is where you generally want the interview to get to, rather than just you lobbing a question and them answering it and then moving down to the next question on the list. The exception to this (I have found) is when the person you are interviewing is very accomplished and very pressed for time. They’ll view such insertions as self-indulgent on your part. In those cases it’s best to ask good questions and then indicate (though follow-up questions) that you are following along.
The most important thing to the success of an interview (well, the most important thing in your control — the most important thing is to have an articulate, interesting interview subject) is to get those little facts straight and have some decent background on the field so that you don’t ask those stupid questions that can turn an interview subject cold. Part of why I thrived as a PR person in an academic environment is because I came from that environment and knew it well. Some of that is the result of being an educated semi-well-read individual, some of it is preparation and some of it is total bluster.
The second most important thing, of course, is to listen.
Also: this really doesn’t apply to what we’re discussing here, but journalists and PR people will often fish around and around and around for that money quote that can go in the story or news release. It’s a practice that I find rarely works. However — if someone does say something really awesome, don’t hesitate to either stop them so you can get it down or have them say it again (which you choose depends on the situation).
With e-mail interviews, I always make sure to let the interview subjects know that all questions are negotiable (e.g. can be rephrased, not answered or added to) but also make sure that it’s clear that I’ve put some thought in to the questions so that the subjects can’t help answering them.
I’ve tried to do the e-mail conversation thing where you go back and forth over the course of several days/weeks/months, but so far most of those have stalled out. Which is a pity because it’s a really fun process.
January 5th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Shelah, you were fabulous! I think you got dealt a tough interview–she had a complicated background, and a tough accent–and you spent a lot of research time, made her feel important, and synthesized the whole thing in an interview that captures her personality and the spirit of her story.
January 5th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
As someone listening to interviews, I really dislike it when an interviewer asks a question that feels more like the purpose is driven more by personal agenda than interest in the person. Questions that are too leading, too desirous to get a desired response (either to force the interview to seem good, or to try to get personal pet topics into the interview). While I understand the need to guide a conversation in some way, I think it’s an important talent to allow the interviewee to shine through. Good research and familiarity with the person and/or his/her work is important.
I think it’s a real talent and art to be able to be a pleasant and professional interviewer, without trying to somehow end up taking center stage or even derailing a conversation.
January 6th, 2009 at 5:51 am
I spent a few years freelancing, mostly to prove to myself that I could make a living as a writer, and my favorite question to ask was one I’d tack on at the very end of an interview: “Is there anything else I should have asked you and didn’t?” I got some really wonderful responses, including a lot of good quotes that I used later as leads for articles.
January 6th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Thanks, Emily. Your vote of confidence means a lot.
m&m– I agree. This Sunday we were watching David Gregory interview Harry Reid on Meet the Press, and Gregory wanted Reid to say he was wrong about the surge in Iraq and he just kept asking (and rephrasing) the same question over and over again and Reid kept giving the same answer. It was obvious that Gregory wanted Reid to admit he was wrong, and just as obvious that Reid wasn’t going to do it.
Libby– thanks for the advice. I like that question a lot.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
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To William’s excellent advice I would only add this, from my time as a journalist: No matter the subject, get yourself genuinely interested therein. This comes easier with some subjects than others, but it’s vital to the truly great interview.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
A simple trick that works in interviews and in Sunday School alike: short questions lead to long answers; long questions lead to short answers (and confused interviewees/students).
You’ll start noticing this write away, and it will cause you much agony and joy. Knowledge is a two-edged sword. Good luck!
Jon
January 7th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Freudian slip: “write away” >> “right away.”
Jon
January 8th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I was a full-time reporter for a newspaper many years ago. It was one of the best times of my life. I agree with Trent that, when it comes to interviewing, nothing helps more than simple practice. I wasn’t the best interviewer when I began my job, but by the end, it was like breathing. The problem is, you have to be in a position to do a lot of interviewing.
I got to use my interviewing skills again when I made a documentary film about first-year teachers in the Alaskan bush. That was even more fun. (You can see the trailer for the film by following this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K_32zwv-xg )
All the things you did were right: making notes, bringing a recorder, bringing moral support. The other thing to do is strike a balance between knowing what you want to get out of the interviewee and making room when an unforeseen gem is presenting itself to you.