The preparation of good questions may be the most important step in the interviewing process. Every story has a unifying central point. Interviewers should have a tentative central point in as they plan their stories. That central point will help them decide whom they should inter-view and what questions they should ask. Say a reporter is planning a profile of a local bank executive who has won several marathon races. The central point for the story may be that -distance running enhances the bank executive’s personal and professional life. That idea suggests certain questions the reporter may ask the bank executive and his friends and family. If the reporter is investigating the bank’s treatment of minorities, however, the reporter may want to interview the same bank executive, but the central point will be different. It may be the way the bank’s lending practices affects minorities who want to buy homes or start businesses. The questions reporters would ask to develop a story about treatment of minorities would be much rent from the questions they would ask for a feature about running in marathons.
Once reporters have decided on their central point and have done their research, they should write their questions in advance. As they interview sources, they should check off each question as they ask it to make sure they do not forget one.
The questions should be arranged in a logical order, so that a source’s answer to one question will lead into the next. Reporters may structure interviews in a variety of ways, depending on the nature of the interview and the reporters’ preferences. Some organize their interviews to begin with general questions and gradually focus on more specific issues. Others go in the op-en direction, starting with specifics and moving to general matters. Still others may remain at roughly one level of specificity but organize their questions to cover an entire issue systematically. With all these strategies, reporters usually ask their most important questions first so that if they run out of time for the interview they will still be able to produce a good story.
Reporters save their most embarrassing or difficult questions for the end of interviews then, their sources should be more comfortable answering questions. Moreover, if a source refuses to answer embarrassing questions and abruptly ends an interview, the reporter will have already obtained most of the information needed for the story.
Regardless of how they organize the questions, reporters should craft all of them to elicit much information as possible. This means asking open-end rather than closed-end questions closed-end question is one that sources can answer with a yes or no: “Will the state’s new tax lid hurt schools?” If reporters want more information, they will have to ask follow-up questions. An open-end question would be, “How will the state’s new tax lid affect schools?” The question pushes the source to provide an analysis of the problem with some supporting facts.
Reporters also should choose questions that will elicit anecdotes, examples and quotations. Here are examples of such questions:
- What crime was the most difficult for you to solve in your career as a detective?
- What television shows do you consider most harmful for children?
- What do you fear the most when you perform before a live audience?
Anytime news sources generalize or give vague answers, reporters should ask for anecdotes and examples that support the generalizations or make the vague responses clearer and more specific. Reporters can use the anecdotes, examples and quotations to make their stories colorful, interesting and understandable.
