How To Document
How To Conduct Professional Interviews
Deposit Photos. Used with permission.
INTRODUCTION TO CONDUCTING PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEWS
So many people believe they know how to conduct an interview. The first thing they tell you when you mention it is this: I know all about the Five W's and the H? While these areas offer some guidance on asking the right questions, knowledge of them alone are barely enough to make it through a successful interview. Even more, most people really have no idea what this journalist phrase means or much less how it applies broadly in the journalism field.
Interviewing is much more involved than simply asking a handful of questions and getting answers – especially if you hope to record an oral history or complete other forms of documentation. You must ask the RIGHT questions so that you can receive THE BEST ANSWERS, and then have keen listening skills to know what to keep, what to throw away, how to follow up and fill in the gaps from there.
For professionals, interviewing is a skill that is learned, nurtured, and developed - not simply asking questions.
What I have attempted to do here is provide you with an “outline and format” for conducting interviews THAT YOU CAN ADAPT to fit the simplicity or complexity of your project based on what I have learned over the years for “spot news reporting” as well as “investigative” print journalism. It is important to note that there are some skills that cross "all interviewing highways" at basic levels in non-academic arenas.
This is one of them.
It was only after conducting my first twenty or so interviews as a journalist (mostly spot news) that I began learning how to observe and listen well, ask the right questions and skillfully steer the conversation toward topics that spoke to what I needed. In addition, you develop skills to "block rabbit trails" and "time wasting" with ease and finesse.
I will give almost anyone a "citizenship journalist award" if they can master those skills.... and walk away with good content.
Spot news (which is on-the-scene interviews) relies heavily on the Five Ws and the H process (which I will explain later). More extensive interviews are not always as straight forward. In those situations, the Five Ws and the H can become tools to uncover the hidden treasure and lead the journalist to asking more detailed, involved questions.
This technique is literally like seeing the difference between reporting on an accident on a major highway (spot news) and doing a comprehensive series of articles on the race riots (investigative journalism) across the United States during the COVID-19 Pandemic. You see, asking the Five Ws and the H would get you a quick, short story on an accident that just happened for the evening news report; but it wouldn’t provide enough information in its raw form to write a comprehensive article on the race riots.
Depending on what you need for your project will determine the kind of interview you conduct.
I will add this, however: The weakest type of interview that can be conducted is an email interview. While it's popular in the hustling community we have today, it is weak in the world of artifacts and barely respectable in the journalism field. It's a lazy man's interview. To rely on this method might please people, but it does nothing to sharpen or develop professional interviewing skills. It will just get you by.
Good interviewing is about the "interviewers ability" to find an angle, dig out the treasure around it and frame the narrative with jewels from teh interview. It's not canned and impersonal. Please don't be upset with this assessment, but I believe we need to be able to differentiate what a proper interview looks like. If we use email interviews, we should do so for profiles, verifying facts or clarifying topics.
THE FIVE W’S AND THE H
Almost everyone has heard about this journalism technique: the Five W’s and the H. But should everyone conducting interviews use it? Well, it depends on your interview objectives. A person does not have to use this method, but it does have some benefits.
In my journalism days it was a critical tool that helped me learn how to gather some useful information for my interviews. I also used it to weed out what was important to my story and what I might leave out.
The Five W’s and the H is a technique based on asking a specific set questions to get the most useful answers possible. The Five W’s and the H” literally represent question groups called the Who, What, When Where, Why and How.
Each W and the H represent a group filled with a sub-set of questions for the interviewer:
Who
Who is involved?
Who is affected?
Who will benefit?
Who will be harmed?
Who is in charge?
What
What happened?
What does the public need to know?
What is involved?
What is the impact?
What is being covered up?
What are the consequences, solutions?
To what extent?
When
When does this take place?
When did this take place?
When will it take place?
When should this take place?
Does when this takes place affect the public?
Does when this takes place affect specific private groups?
Where
Where does this take place?
Where did this take place?
Where will it take place?
Where should it take place?
Why is it important where it takes place?
Does it matter where it takes place?
Is it affected by location?
Why
Why is this important?
Why does it matter?
Why did it happen?
Why should people care?
How
How did this happen?
How does it function?
How did it come to be?
How are those involved affected?
How was this fixed?
How will it be fixed?
How long will it take?
These questions are about basic information gathering. They provide a basis for formulating the right questions. They are not necessarily “literal” questions for every situation but are meant guide.
To better grasp this concept, pick ANY news article from a reputable and popular news agency like the BBC, the New York Times or your award-winning state or local news agencies. Read the article or listen to the broadcast. Then ask the questions from each category. You WILL see the answers to at least one or two questions from each of these question types answered in those articles. For more complex projects like investigative news articles, histories or documentaries, many of the questions in each category will be answered.
SOME ADDITIONAL TIPS
To make the process easier for you, I created a unique and detailed resource guide entitled, "The Beginners Guide to Conducting Professional Interviews." It is absolutely free for use during this course, and provides more information and detail in one place concerning interviewing that you will find anywhere on the Internet. I took the time to outline my personal interviewing process and knowledge.
In addition, I listed some other resources for specific kinds of interviews. You will quickly learn, however, that the guide I've provided gives you simple, but strong foundational information that compliments the other sources. Combined, you should have a pretty good idea of what is required.
Additional Resources:
Best Practices for Oral Histories How to conduct an Email Interview
How to conduct a documentary interview How to write a profile story
Download another great resource for this course below.