If you have a difficult interview and you’re worried that you can’t handle it, rehearse it. Rehearse an imaginary dialogue with your interlocutor, imagine the most difficult moments, simulate possible answers and reactions of the person, think of appropriate lines.
There is a term “staircase effect” – it explains the situation when after a job interview or an unpleasant conversation you go down the stairs and come up with scathing answers, although you know that the moment has already passed. Training will allow you to simulate the “reverse staircase effect” – by thinking through the important points in advance, you will feel more confident.
Interview Schemes
Immediately before the interview, try to diffuse any tension that has arisen, if it has arisen and if you have time to do so. You can remind the subject of the conversation, how long it will take, it is not superfluous to ask how the hero got there, how he feels and similar little things.
And when you are ready to ask questions, evaluate your goals, the situation, and the hero. For example, you may not have a lot of time, and then you ask the questions that are important to you right away. Or there may be enough time, but you are faced with a very closed person with a strong sense of self, who you think can get up and leave at any moment, then you start the conversation cautiously.
I will now list the basic schemes that reek of bookish nonsense. You don’t have to memorize them, in preparation you will most likely understand the order in which to ask questions, but some of these may make your life easier.
The Classic Scheme
The first questions are simple and pleasant. The character relaxes, gets used to the conversation, and demonstrates his or her competence in something.
When the interviewee has become talkative, the journalist moves on to more complex and problematic topics. Toward the end, but not in the finale, he asks the very uncomfortable question for which he may have come.
The last question is often a soft one, to smooth out the effect and return the favor of the interlocutor, with whom the text has yet to agree.
“Funnel.”
One common pattern for constructing a portrait interview. The interviewer starts the dialogue with open questions, which set the interlocutor up for a long conversation, allowing him to respond thoughtfully and argumentatively, and then he pumps in a blitz or closed questions. As a consequence, the interview has an agenda and a dynamic. Each question brings the participants closer to the climax.
But there is also the model of an “inverted funnel” in which the journalist starts the interview with short closed questions, thereby getting as much information as possible in a minimum amount of time, and then uses this information in subsequent questions, making the prepared questions more difficult.
Chronological, logical and improvisational interviewing charts
The chronological scheme is used when it is important for a journalist to recreate an event in detail – it is most often used in investigative and documentary journalism.
Logical – the journalist is trying to cover a topic in a coherent way without missing anything, chronology may not be very important here.
Improvisational structure most often comes into play when the journalist is unprepared or when he has no specific questions, because the interlocutor is a prominent personality and can talk interestingly for hours, or because the interview is conducted with an acquaintance in an informal manner.
All interviews involve improvisation in one way or another, because the journalist never knows exactly where the thread of the conversation will lead him and the protagonist. If you quickly analyze new information, find analogies and quickly formulate new interesting questions on the basis of what you have just heard, it is a big plus for you as an interviewer. Sometimes it is through improvisation that you can learn something truly valuable.
When you watch or read an interview, note the question with which the journalist begins: speeding up or hitting right away, looping, disposing, or sitting there like a frozen owl. Videos are more revealing in this sense, because in a printed text the author may put an uncomfortable question at the beginning, even though he asked it in the fortieth minute of the conversation.
How to dress for an interview
You can work in anything you want: in total violet, in chains and leather, in a Hawaiian shirt, in a hat with soda cans embedded in it – a journalist dresses comfortably; no one expects him to wear a suit and tie, except the protocol staff of the highest state officials.
But I want to warn you. An interviewer is a special journalist, he has an hour and a half to talk about various complex topics with a stranger. And the sooner you get the hero to like you, the better. Under such conditions, it is good if the hero is not distracted from the conversation.
The excessive sexuality of a journalist can embarrass the interlocutor, and so can very expensive attire. Being neat and in neutral clothing is, in my opinion, the best option for an interview.
What you do during the interview
An interview is quite energy consuming because during the conversation you need to:
understand the interlocutor and choose a strategy: make him or her feel comfortable, keep it formal or something else;
Ask questions with confidence and clarity;
Listen carefully to the answers, noting for yourself the branches of thought that can be developed in a separate segment of the conversation (note them in a notebook or in the notes on your phone);
ask qualifying questions, understanding what you are missing in the answer: some images (illustrative examples), figures, emotions, connection with a previous or subsequent event, etc;
at the same time, imagine what you are going to talk about next;
change the course of the interview if the character starts answering questions that you planned to ask later,
Analyze the hero’s behavior as the interview progresses, so you can see whether it’s worth adding a joke, shining with knowledge, being polite and careful, or being a bit of an unbridled rascal for the hero to open up better.
Listen carefully to the hero, looking him in the eyes (or focus your gaze on the bridge of his nose, so as not to embarrass him with your gaze), but don’t forget to look away from time to time. Most people lack an appreciative listener, and if you reveal yourself as such, the hero will open up more than he or she intended, even if he or she is initially skeptical of your media, your questions, your appearance, your gender, and everything else. At the same time, really take an interest in the person, listen to what he says, watch his reactions. If you think the character is boring and nothing will work, but you start a conversation, the interview is likely to be boring.
Be sure to include a voice recorder, even if the interview is short or you caught the star on the run. Put the recorder app button on your phone’s quick access screen, or, in a pinch, turn on video recording by pointing the camera at the floor: it’s unethical to shoot without first making an appointment. Keep your dictaphone recordings: they are your (and your newsroom’s) insurance against all possible trouble.
Some beginning journalists like to end their interviews with the same catchy question to make the interview look complete. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the interview will look complete without such a question if you’ve structured the conversation properly. Yes, you should pay attention to the last question and the last answer, they should both close the conversation and not be empty, but don’t overestimate them. Sometimes instead of the last question you and the hero can exchange short remarks – they are very easy and unobtrusive to complete your conversation, sometimes the question itself can sound not general, but the theme will close the interviewee’s answer.