The Media Interview

A common tactic by interviewers is to find a quote from the past which contradicts what the person now says. Catching out someone making a u-turn is generally perceived as a “gotcha” moment, but I thought it was interesting that famed British TV interviewer Jeremy Paxman – known for some gotcha moments of his own [...]

Jason McIntyre co-creator, writer, and editor, of the blog The Big Lead interviewed on Sports Media Guide: Q. Do you do your interviews by e-mail or phone? A. Kornheiser was over the phone – he doesn’t do e-mail. I prefer e-mail. I started doing it by e-mail because I was anonymous at the time and [...]

Barbara Walters on one of the main reasons she stopped doing the TV newsmagazine 20/20 back in 2004: …it seemed that every celebrity, every murderer…had a lawyer or a press agent all interviewing the interviewer to determine where they could get the most airings for their clients, what kind of questions would be asked, and [...]

The plastic surgeon who operated on Kanye West’s mother the day before she died, walked off CNN’s “Larry King Live” during an interview tonight. Larry King opened the hour by saying that it wasn’t clear if Dr. Jan Adams would appear as promised. King said that West’s family had formally asked Adams not to go [...]

The way NPR’s Bryant Park Project tells it, the Icelandic band Sigur Ros was at fault for what it calls “possibly the worst interview in the history of electronic media”. Seriously. It was that bad. We’re not sure if they were tired, or if it was a language thing, or what… but wow. Whereas most [...]

The Today Show’s Matt Lauer, talking with Larry King about the most fascinating person he’s ever interviewed: LAUER: You know I’m one of these people who tends to think that the ordinary people are more fascinating than the celebrities and even the politicians. Celebrities and politicians are practiced, you know. I mean they’ve been asked [...]

At least once in their careers, most journalists have had a technical problem that required them to re-do an interview. New York Times Senior Art Director Steven Heller, a widely-published design writer and editor, shared his experience in an email interview with Unbeige: For years I would use my trusty cassette player — usually face [...]

Love this story about Ernest Hemingway being interviewed by George Plimpton, as told by Philip Gourevitch, the current editor of the Paris Review, who was interviewed on Powells.com by Dave Weich. Gourevitch: A few days ago I was in L.A., and I was talking about the book [The Paris Review Interviews, Vol I] with Stephen [...]

Came across this great anecdote in an article on interview techniques by Deborah Potter, Executive Director of NewsLab. It’s a perfect example of how narrow, closed questions can keep you from getting the information you need. Robert Siegel, who works for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., tells the story of an interview he did [...]

The editor of Cracked magazine, Jay Pinkerton, did an interview that went rather badly, and he blogged about what it’s like to be on the other side of an interview: In working for a magazine [that] conducts interviews, I’ve come across people who outright refuse to take questions by phone or in person, asking for [...]