DUSTING OFF THE INTERVIEWER COBWEBS

Writing About WritingPersonal GrowthJournalism

3 Nov

I’ve intentionally been putting myself in the way of something that I find fairly difficult and scary these past two or three weeks. Interviewing. I’ve been dusting off the cobwebs on my social skills, getting out there, and ingratiating myself on the public at large.

Interviewing skills are paramount for anyone who wants to get along in media. Talking to people and listening to their stories is sort of a backbone in how stories are sourced (especially off-diary ones), and a fundamental step in bringing important information to the public. Otherwise journalists would just be making things up, right?

But there’s a difference between simply holding an interview and truly being good at them. That’s why I’ve been trying to include interviewing, or elements of interviewing, in as many projects in the past few weeks as I can. I want to begin honing the skills and developing the muscles that great interviewers flex all the time.

Dusting off the cobwebs.

After about two years almost exclusively inside, my social skills are – to put it lightly – not what they used to be. Talking to new people has always been something of a source of anxiety for me, but doing it now is tantamount to torture. So I’ve been making a conscious effort to get out there and get talking.

In fact, today alone I sent out no fewer than eight interview requests (none have replied so far, thanks for asking).

We’ve got a big sense of “it’ll be grand” here in Ireland. So it would be very easy for me to coast through this course thinking I can just sit down with someone and ask them questions and that’ll be that. But I really believe that would be to my detriment. I want to use this time in the safe space of a university to put myself in situations I find personally difficult so that I can develop skills now, rather than on the dime of a future employer.

Asking the questions.

I‘m not exactly new to interviewing, but it has been a while.

In 2016, I kicked off a 12-week health and fitness podcast following the weight-loss journey of comedian and actor Stephen Ryan called Health Binge. This journey led us to meet many mainstream and alternative fitness practitioners – from power lifting to pole dancing – across Ireland.

I would interview instructors and practitioners after they’d given Stephen a taster class and some advice in reaching his weight-loss goals.

That project was a lot of fun and it did make me realise the craic that can be had in talking to strangers about things they’re passionate about. But the last few years not honing those skills has left me wanting.

And so we go again into the breach.

For my first interview back in the saddle, I decided to take it a little easy on myself. I decided to interview someone I know in a location we both feel comfortable (a local Limerick artist and a place that sells beer, respectively).

This was a great transition back into the interviewer’s chair. I was able to engage and ask questions without fear of judgement and try out a couple of techniques that I’d been learning about in various modules the previous weeks.

For vox sake.

Once I’d gotten somewhat back in the saddle, I knew it was time to take myself further out of my comfort zone. So I threw myself right into something I’ve always hated doing. Vox pops.

I genuinely abhor doing vox pops. Or, I like them after the fact. I like having done them. Vox pops are like going to the dentist or seeing a friend you haven’t seen in a long time that you forget you actually get on with. You dread going into them but afterwards there’s a nice glow of having gotten an experience and some different opinions that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

That glow doesn’t take away the anxiety of going into them for me, however. I really detest approaching people on the street and asking them for something without having anything to give them in return. It makes me feel like a bit of a nuisance. This is exactly why I chose to jump into them second. Because they scare me and I need them not to scare me.

Slowly removing the safety net.

Interviews with people who have something to promote are the easiest. You have a mutual reason to be there. They want you to help sell what they’ve got to sell. You want to get a unique angle on what they’re selling and maybe get an even more interesting slant or a scoop in the process. In other words, when you have something to give in return, things are a little easier.

That safety net of reciprocity was removed for my next interview as I spoke with a former University of Limerick lecturer about labour exploitation and bullying within third-level institutions.

This was a new kind of interview for me. Speaking to someone who felt a little cagey about what to say and what not to say, and who worried about what the implications of what they were saying might have on their career or the people they worked with.

I relished this challenge a little. There was more incentive for me to dig and weave my way around difficult questions, making them feel as comfortable as possible to engage with difficult topics without appearing to push or be overly confrontational.

The feeling after this interview was far different than after some of the pop profile interviews I’ve done. And that’s not because this one wasn’t in a bar. There was definitely a feeling of having touched on topics that were of social value, and a sense of privilege in being able to share that information in the resulting article.

Commonalities.

Despite the different aims and styles of these interviews, I found there are a lot of commonalities between them when it comes to process.

For example, they will generally have the same flow and require a lot of the same techniques. Like being gregarious and warm in greeting and kicking off proceedings, regardless of how well you know or don’t know the interviewee – this helps make them feel comfortable and at ease before questions even start.

The flow of questions (with the exception of the vox pop) is relatively the same too. Question flows are best shaped like a funnel, starting with wide open questions that are simple or light, before getting down to more difficult or complex topics, often which might be best served with closed-ended questions.

I found myself reasonably handy in being able to reshuffle my question list in the moment, bouncing from top to bottom to middle of the list as the interviewees touched on different topics and made comments that didn’t lead where I expected. I also found it far more useful to come up with follow-up questions in the moment too, instead of sticking to rigid lists.

This ability to bounce around (which, if I’m honest, was probably benefited by my previous experience with improv and role-playing games, but that’s a story for another day) really helped too in establishing rapport because it allowed me to engage actively rather than passively run through a point-to-point list of questions.

Space to get it wrong.

What I’m finding most useful at the moment is the space this course allows me to “get it wrong”. I have a lot of fears around interviewing. First of all around technique, but also in perhaps not coming out of interviews with the material or information I need. The safety net of the course in facilitating a space to practice the craft is invaluable.

I hope to challenge myself even further soon by interviewing someone who implicitly does not want to be interviewed or does not wish to engage on a certain topic. I’m sure there’s plenty of those about.