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Power Tools for
Professional Interviews
By Phyllis Ring
Most editors today expect freelancers to boost an article's credibility with
quoted material from one or more expert sources. To find and incorporate these
perspectives successfully, we need a repertoire of effective and professional
interview techniques. Essentially, the interviewee does the writer a favor,
helping us to write accurately about what we don't know and make it
understandable and interesting to the reader. At best, they also become a point
of reference for other contacts and resources and have even provided me with
future story ideas.
As more things compete for our time and attention, prospective interviewees,
especially experts, can be hard to reach. Contact a potential source as far
ahead of your deadline as possible because even in our instant-communication
age, people go on sabbaticals or get buried under an avalanche of
correspondence. You may need to contact several sources to acquire enough
information so compile a list of prospects in case some refuse or don't respond.
You can always include several sources, or save some of the input you receive
for a future story or resale.
Show consideration for a source's time by demonstrating that you've done your
homework and will conduct the interview in a professional way. Before making the
initial contact, equip yourself with basic information about the topic and, when
possible, the interviewee. Internet search engines make this easier than ever.
One pre-interview search revealed that my potential source had written a book
about raising sons in addition to the one on adoption I'd already seen. This
helped shape the questions I asked her, as well as the focus and outline of my
article.
Knowing more about your source and topic helps you build rapport, recognize and
understand the topic's terminology, and frame open-ended questions that will be
interesting for your source to answer. For experts, especially, it's troubling
to be asked repeatedly to supply the most basic information by interviewers who
haven't bothered to educate themselves first.
Gathering some information ahead of time has another advantage. On first
contact, many sources want to know what you're going to ask about. More than one
busy expert has also told me, "I can give you a few minutes right now." If I
hadn't done some homework first, I'd have missed a window of opportunity with
someone I might not easily reach again.
Whether you telephone, write, or e-mail, state your interview request clearly
and specifically: "I've been assigned by Magazine X to write an article about
how women with diabetes can prepare for a healthy pregnancy. Are you willing to
answer questions for this story?" If you don't have an assignment from a
publication, simply state what you intend to write and request the interview. If
the person asks where a story will be published, name the publication(s) you
plan to query about it (information you'll need to research and have on hand).
Specify the deadline by which you'll need information and provide an estimate of
how much time you'll need for a face-to-face or telephone interview. Decide
together what the best type of interview format will be for your mutual
convenience. E-mail interviews have made the whole process more accessible-- and
faster-- but even if this isn't possible, you can still e-mail, fax, or mail
questions for your source to see ahead of time. All contact should be made at
your expense although occasionally sources may prefer to call you back for
personal convenience.
If you make your interview request by mail, e-mail, or voice-mail, plan to
follow up by phone or e-mail at least once if you don't receive a reply within
five to seven business days. State in your initial request that you will follow
up, and when, according to the needs of your deadline.
What if your source asks, "You'll send me a copy of the article for review
before it's published, right?"
Allowing sources to see a manuscript and have control over its content will
usually compromise its integrity and blur the distinction between unbiased
reporting and promotional material. As a writer, your obligation to the
interviewee and to the publication for which you're writing is to be fair,
accurate, and unbiased in the way you use the material disclosed in the
interview. Obviously, this means that you've got a big job to do in getting all
of the facts right and conveying them in as balanced a way as you can but unless
the sources themselves are contracting your services to write the piece, you owe
them nothing more than that.
My usual response is to say politely and without apology that the publication
I'm writing for doesn't allow this, as indeed most do not. If interviewees are
insistent on seeing what I write before it's published, I offer them the option
of seeing the quoted material I plan to use, but nothing more.
There are times when writers may CHOOSE to accommodate this request in a
modified way. For instance, I've sometimes made an exception when the topic was
a very complex one. I once interviewed a wild-plant specialist who offered to
review the confounding Latin plant names the story would inevitably include. It
was an unobtrusive offer of assistance I accepted gladly-- even though I majored
in plant sciences in college-- because I wanted the subject, the magazine, and
myself to all look professional.
Professionalism-- and courtesy-- are two of the most important things the writer
brings to the interview process. Doing our homework and preparing ourselves
thoroughly even before we talk with sources maximizes their time and
effectiveness-- and our own. This helps us glean the kind of information and
input that put our manuscript a cut above, and may even gain us a contact we can
turn to for future article ideas, too.
Phyllis Ring's writing-related articles have appeared in Freelance Market
News, Writer's Weekly, and Writer's Digest Forum. Her articles and essays have
also been featured in such publications as American Profile, Christian Science
Monitor, Mamm, Ms., and The World & I. More information about her work is
available at
www.phyllisring.com.
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