Interview basics

Fundamental to everything we do

A Farm Radio International Learning Module

Interview basics

In this module you will learn:

What makes a good interview

How to form good questions
How to structure an interview
The notes to make before an interview
What to do at the end of the interview

A good interview

Has a clear focus.

Contains stories about real people.
Has direct, conversational language, questions and answers.
Has a tone that is appropriate for the subject.

A good interviewer

Knows the story

Is in control of the interview.
Is confident without being aggressive.
Is sensitive to language and nuance.
Remembers that the interviewers job is to inform, not impress.

An interview must have a shape

A beginning that sets up the story, introduces the person being

interviewed and asks the first question.

A middle that details all the information necessary to

communicate the story, with examples and illustrations.

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Interview Basics

An end, a final question that sums it all up, resolves the story
and points to the future.
At the end of the interview, the listener should feel that he/she
has heard a story.
It is more than likely the listener will be able to repeat what they
have heard.

Basic steps

Before you start an interview

Be sure you have established a proper focus for the interview

See the learning module called Interview focus for how to set a focus

If you are unsure of the focus or reason why the interview is being
done, the interview is almost guaranteed to fail

Basic steps

The first question is important

Think about the first question and formulate it very clearly before you
start the interview.
The importance of a good first question cannot be overstated.
It should be clear and to the point.
This encourages a clear, to-the-point answer

The first question

Sets the tone of the interview.

Stimulates the person being interviewed.
Brings the listener into the story.

Questions

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Interview Basics

Interviewers act as surrogates for listeners

Who, what, when, where, why and how are clean, clear, simple
questions that get to the point

For example

What happened next? or So what happens next?

What makes you say that?
How did you deal with that?
How did that affect you?
What do you want?
What stays with you?

Why? The most powerful question

Some interviewers like to ask why as the first question.

Why gets at motivation the reasons which drive the action of the
story.
Be aware that if you open an interview with Why, you need to have a
plan about where you go from there.
What or How are often better first questions.
They let the person being interviewed and the listener warm up. They
let you set the scene for the big question: Why?

You have to establish what the person being interviewed did and
then Why? will complete the story.

Its somebody doing something for a reason

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Interview Basics

Formulating questions

Avoid closed or self-answering questions

To the question, You are 40 years old, arent you? the only possible
answers are yes or no. Ask instead: How old are you?
Instead of asking Is the project contributing to conflict resolution in
your community? ask, How is the project contributing to conflict
resolution in your community?

Avoid double-barrelled questions.

For example: Why did you decide to become an undertaker and was it
a good decision? The person being interviewed is faced with a choice
and will often avoid the more difficult question.

Be specific in your questioning.

Questions such as Tell me about your farm give the person being
interviewed a license to say anything in any amount of time.

Avoid making statements instead of asking questions

If you say, That seems to me to be the wrong thing to do, you are
giving an opinion, which could derail the whole interview.

Avoid making statements with an interrogative tone

For example: Then what you are saying is that worms are best
collected in glass jars?

Use the word you or the interviewees name as much as

possible

This underlines that you are talking to a real person.

It makes it hard for the person being interviewed to generalize.
It reminds him/her that he/she is talking on the radio as a human
being, not as an institution.

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Interview Basics

Ask the person being interviewed to give examples

This will give the interview colour and imagery

It will also keep it from being too abstract and theoretical.
Make sure you probe their answers
For example they may say,

Its going to be a difficult dry season.

What does that mean?
Will it be a longer dry season than normal?
Why is it going to be more difficult?
We need clarification.

The more specific answers are, the better your interview will be.

Use silence effectively

You dont have to jump in with another question right after the person
being interviewed has finished answering.
If you dont jump in right after the person being interviewed is finished,
the person being interviewed will leap in to fill the silence.
Sometimes, he/she will give you a better answer when he/she leaps
back into it.

Interview notes

The success of an interview depends on several things

A good focus prepared from the pre-interview or other research.

The right person being interviewed.
A skilled interviewer makes a well-prepared set of initial questions.

If you are going to prepare your interview as a complete

package, your notes should contain:

The focus statement.

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Interview Basics

The introduction.
The all-important prepared initial questions.

Your notes should be an interview road map. They give

directions on how to get from beginning to end in the interview.

Review them before conducting the interview but do not read

from them or look at them while you are talking with your guest

You should have both the focus and the basic questions in your
mind before the interview begins

During the interview

Listen!

An interview is a structured conversation.

The structure comes from your focus and interview roadmap but you
must be prepared for possible deviations for which you had not planned
A conversation has two partners and requires each one to listen to the
answers and comments of the other to get the best results
Make sure each answer from your guest addresses your focus in
enough detail for listeners to understand
If not, come back to the question in another form

For example I understand what you are saying, but could you give me
some more detail?

The last question

There is one question you should always ask at the end of the
interview.
Is there anything you wanted to say that we have not covered?

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Interview Basics

Sometimes this is the most important and revealing question in

the interview

After the questions

When the questions are over

Check your recording to be sure you have good sound

If there is a problem, you can resolve the problem and try the interview
again (if your guest is willing)

Complete a log sheet to make a written record of the interview (see the
log sheet learning module for how this can be done)

This will be used by others on the production team so they know what you
have done

Thank you

You have now completed the module Interview basics.

Remember, you can come back and review this module at any
time.

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Interview Basics