The Art of the Interview
04 Feb 09
How do you conduct a successful interview? What are the differences between interviewing a celebrity, a politician or an everyday man on the street?
The last RTS Futures event, which took place on the 29th January 2009, discovered the Art of the Interview. RTS Futures members heard the tricks of the trade from our panel of experts: Alastair Stewart OBE, Michael Brunson OBE, Miquita Oliver, Nick Robinson and Jon Ronson.
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Top Interview Tips
1. Always prepare - know your subject inside out.
2. Don't be afraid of silence: let the uncomfortable silence continue and you will find the interviewee adding more - this is when people can be most honest.
3. Listen to what they are saying
4. Try and create a level of trust between yourself and the person you are interviewing
5. It's ok if the interview doesn't flow neatly - treat it as an organic conversation
6. Get rid of your preconceptions about the person you are interviewing
7. Don't bluff or lie
8. Care about the interview - you are having this conversation on behalf of your audience
Questions from the audience
How do you secure interviews?
Jon Ronson: “I find that terrifying. It’s the thing I like least about the whole process. All my self-confidence deserts me in that situation, so I try and get other people to do that. If you have to, be prepared and show you know a lot about them and their lives. Be non-threatening: I would never turn up in a suit. I always think if I turn up in a suit the interviewee will think they’ve done something wrong. I’m quite non-threatening and I look a bit like a student.”
How do you deal with situations where the interviewee’s PR people control the questions and the interview?
Michael Brunson: “I wouldn’t agree to do an interview under those circumstances … It absolutely kills [the interview] stone dead.”
Jon Ronson: “PR is the enemy of journalism … Don’t go into PR — it’s wicked and nefarious.”
Are there situations where an interview is inappropriate?
Jon Ronson: “A couple of years ago I interviewed [for BBC Radio 4] David Shayler, who was the MI5 officer who jumped ship and became a conspiracy theorist … He said to me at one point, ‘If you believe that four Muslims were responsible for 7/7, then you’re racist.’ I said, ‘Fuck off.’ And, we aired it and I got loads of letters of congratulations for telling David Shayler to **** off. A couple of months later he announced that he was the Son of God.”
Have you ever been in danger?
Jon Ronson: “I went to [neo-Nazi group] Aryan Nations in Idaho and they surrounded me and asked me my genealogy. I said I was Church of England. A couple of the Nazis then made a joke about it and diffused the situation. I’ve always thought those Nazis who helped me out were undercover feds.”
How do you deal with intimidating interviewees such as Peter Mandelson?
Miquita Oliver: “I have interviewed P Diddy, who’s a total w£nker to be honest. He was on his phone the whole time, taking calls during the three-minute interview that we’d waited four hours to get. I don’t think he needed to take his calls; he felt like making me uncomfortable. It was a horrid interview because I got really angry, and it became a horrible battle to get his attention.”
Jon Ronson: “If you’re human and they’re monsters, then you’ve won.”
Michael Brunson: “If you can’t put up with Peter Mandelson staring you down, you shouldn’t be in the business. You’ve got to hold your nerve.”
How do you interview people in a senstive way - for example a person who has lost a member of their family in Gaza?
Michael Brunson: “They’re either going to agree to do an interview about the loss of their son or they’re not going to agree — that’s your starting point. Once you’re off down the track then, in a situation like that, you have to fly by the seat of your pants. You have to probe a little to see what they will talk about and what they won’t. Very often, you’ll find out after a couple of minutes what sort of basis you’re going to be [interviewing them] on.”
Jon Ronson: “Losing someone you love is unthinkable and unbearable … I interviewed a woman called Rachel Weaver whose family were killed by the FBI in Idaho. The question I asked her more often than any other was, ‘What happened then?’ … To try and understand and empathise you want details.”
Michael Brunson: “There could be an agenda that your interviewee has. I suspect that if they are prepared to talk about the loss of their son in Gaza it will be because of their extreme anger.”
Is probing the interviewee’s personality or subject more important?
Miquita Oliver: “For me it’s very much personality. The thing that the person has come on to promote, they’ve probably already been on 15 other shows talking about. It’s about building a rapport with them.”
Jon Ronson: “I agree — it’s personality. If you want to understand the horrors of the world, try and understand the crazy ways that people behave.”
Micahel Brunson: “You’re there to get information that’s the point of doing a political interview. But, of course, knowing the way somebody ticks and how to handle that person, that’s the personality side.”
