The art of interviewing

Scanlas The 2nd

How many interviews in the media do we see where the interviewer actually gains ground and gets the interviewee to change their opinion, not many that's for sure. The reason being is the interviewer puts the interviewee's defenses up straight away. A classic example would be when a lady from RTE interviewed George Bush. The article below is fairly interesting on the subject.

http://powerseductionandwar.com/the-art-of-interviewing/

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It's not the interviewer's role to change the interviewee's opinion, it's to impartially extract relevant information from them.

Saila

Cayden Panicky Skirt wrote: »

It's not the interviewer's role to change the interviewee's opinion, it's to impartially extract relevant information from them.

so thats why tubridy is ****e then

Scanlas The 2nd

It's the interviewer's role to find holes and biases in the interviewees logic and to get to the bottom of the real motives. When politicians are being interviewed or debated the interviewer nearly always gets the politician's defenses up by disagreeing early on and by coming across really judgemental. As a result the interview goes no where.

brummytom

I, probably in a minority, think Graham Norton is a great interviewer.

He often appears to have read more than just the guest's wikipedia entry, and makes them feel relaxed enough to open up and say things that they mightn't say with other presenters. He also, unlike Jonathan Ross, doesn't constantly talks about himself, and lets the guests just go with it.


It depends what you want from an interviewer though. For more serious interviews, someone like Jeremy Paxman is very good.

Da Shins Kelly

Jeremy Paxman has a very aggressive style, but he does his research beforehand and knows his stuff so he is able to ask relevant and sometimes awkward questions. I'd be pretty fearful going into an interview with him if I was a politician.

PK2008

The interviews you see on TV, in magazines etc are mostly for entertainment purposes so the object is really down to what audience/format the participants are trying to satisfy. A 'good' interview in that sense is purely subjective- an opinion changed is still an opinion.

Interviewing is used however for academic purposes as an accepted qualitative research method and is used to identify trends among multiple participants.

Dionysus

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

How many interviews in the media do we see where the interviewer actually gains ground and gets the interviewee to change their opinion, not many that's for sure. The reason being is the interviewer puts the interviewee's defenses up straight away. A classic example would be when a lady from RTE interviewed George Bush. The article below is fairly interesting on the subject.

http://powerseductionandwar.com/the-art-of-interviewing/

Did somebody say something remotely positive about RTÉ? Surely this has to be a crime up there with a positive word about religion?

Yeah, where is Karen Coleman nowadays? I would have thought her career would have taken off because of that interview.

Scanlas The 2nd

Dionysus wrote: »

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

How many interviews in the media do we see where the interviewer actually gains ground and gets the interviewee to change their opinion, not many that's for sure. The reason being is the interviewer puts the interviewee's defenses up straight away. A classic example would be when a lady from RTE interviewed George Bush. The article below is fairly interesting on the subject.

http://powerseductionandwar.com/the-art-of-interviewing/

Did somebody say something remotely positive about RTÉ? Surely this has to be a crime up there with a positive word about religion?

Yeah, where is Karen Coleman nowadays? I would have thought her career would have taken off because of that interview.

That was an awful interview, George Bush's defences went up straight away, she was never going to catch him out or make it obvious he was wrong.

Scanlas The 2nd

Da Shins Kelly wrote: »

Jeremy Paxman has a very aggressive style, but he does his research beforehand and knows his stuff so he is able to ask relevant and sometimes awkward questions. I'd be pretty fearful going into an interview with him if I was a politician.

Exactly you'd be fearful going in and would put your defences up straight away. The key is to seemingly agree with the interviewee's initial position. Then get them to commit to positions seemingly unrelated. Then you use that to show how it contradicts the main position.

Chuck Stone

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

That was an awful interview, George Bush's defences went up straight away, she was never going to catch him out or make it obvious he was wrong.

Because he was doing a fine job of it himself impromptu before she ever came along.

Cianos

Louis Theroux is brilliant at disarming the interviewee by pretending to be a bit dim and innocent.

Faith+1

Did you say Pan or Pam??

Chuck Stone

Cianos wrote: »

Louis Theroux is brilliant at disarming the interviewee by pretending to be a bit dim and innocent.

From the School of Borat interviewing course.

Da Shins Kelly

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Exactly you'd be fearful going in and would put your defences up straight away. The key is to seemingly agree with the interviewee's initial position. Then get them to commit to positions seemingly unrelated. Then you use that to show how it contradicts the main position.

I dunno. He knows the facts and knows what he's talking about, and I don't think that lulling people into a false sense of security is necessarily the best interviewing technique either.

mikemac1

Da Shins Kelly wrote: »

Jeremy Paxman has a very aggressive style, but he does his research beforehand and knows his stuff so he is able to ask relevant and sometimes awkward questions.

He's a clown and a bully

Have you seen Paxman vs Galloway

Da Shins Kelly

mikemac1 wrote: »

He's a clown and a bully

Have you seen Paxman vs Galloway

I've seen some very good interviews with him, and he always chairs the best debates. Like I said, he's aggressive but he knows his stuff. He's done some brilliant interviews with the likes of Noam Chomsky and Richard Dawkins, and was one of the last people to interview Christopher Hitchens (and a great interview it was). Sure, he's had moments that have let him down, but on the whole I think he asks interesting questions and is capable of having an intelligent and insightful interview with someone.

Gophur

Dionysus wrote: »

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

How many interviews in the media do we see where the interviewer actually gains ground and gets the interviewee to change their opinion, not many that's for sure. The reason being is the interviewer puts the interviewee's defenses up straight away. A classic example would be when a lady from RTE interviewed George Bush. The article below is fairly interesting on the subject.

http://powerseductionandwar.com/the-art-of-interviewing/

Did somebody say something remotely positive about RTÉ? Surely this has to be a crime up there with a positive word about religion?

Yeah, where is Karen Coleman nowadays? I would have thought her career would have taken off because of that interview.

Obviously she didn't make much of an impression on you either?

Her name is Carol!

mikemac1

She was on Newstalk radio doing a Saturday morning current affairs show last I heard of her

You know, read the newspapers, slurp the coffee, invite some guests on to discuss the topics of the day