Interview

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Interview

• Reporting and News Writing
• JMSC0002B
• Feb 18, 2001

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Carpe Diem(Seize the Day)
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Talk!

• Coax your interviewee to give you the right stuff
  for your story.
• Ask the right questions.

4
Close-ended questions

• To get the facts.
• Example What are you going to do after
  graduation?

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Open-ended questions

• To get the feel, let the interviewee speak
  his/her mind.
• Example Why do you want to be a journalist?

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Loaded questions

• Have you already fixed up for Tung Chee Hwa to
  serve a second term?
• (HK reporter to Jiang Zemin in 2000)

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Opening

• Ice-breaker
• Preface your question succinctly. Avoid long
  winded introduction.

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Control the flow

• When you are tight deadline, let your source
  talk, but keep him on the subject.

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Leading the witness

• Do not put words in your sources mouth.
• You really felt sorry. Didnt you?

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Attribution

• Named sources give your story credibility.
• Anonymous sources often give you more headache
  than they are worth.

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Direct quote

• Direct quote allows your source to talk to your
  reader directly.
• Revealing and significant, something you cannot
  say it better in your own words.
• Must be highly selective.

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Paraphrase

• Summarize what your source tells you.
• (also called indirect quote).

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Can you edit quotes?

• No.
• If the quote is unclear, paraphrase.

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Specific, Concrete word

• Compare
• - the vendor said
• - the vendor shouted, exclaimed, thundered,
  or just whispered.

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No Need to Clear the Throat -- Go directly to
the scene you are describing
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Figures of Speech

• Simile is an expressed comparison
• The flower market after midnight was like a ghost
  town.
• Metaphor is an implied comparison
• A group of little old ladies soldiered on...