i’m a freelance journalist and this really helped me see the other side. i’m considering emailing a link to this page to people i may interview who don’t get interviewed much. might help us both in ensuring a smoother interview.

thanks for this!

It’s very easy to relax at the end of an interview and, in fact, I often get my best quotes (for case studies rather than editorial articles these days!) at the very end when people think it’s over. In my experience, people relax enough to stop trying to sound ‘big and clever’ and they actually sound much more human.

This is, ideally, what you should be aiming for as an interviewee from the beginning: human, concise, knowledgeable, interesting. In a word, quotable.

Multi-part questions are just lazy thinking from the journalist. You can always say “what was the first part again?” if you get lost mid-question!

(1) Watch out for the “walk to the elevator.” The interview is not officially over until you or the journalist leaves the building , so stay “on” until the very end. Informal parting comments or responses to seemingly innocuous questions can end up in the story.

(2) If the journalist asks a very complex, multi-level question, break it up into parts when answering. Restate/rephrase each part before answering it.

I’m a professor, so it is difficult for me to speak in small bits, but I will practice over the weekend. I’ll use a stop watch to try to make sure my answers are between 30 to 60 seconds.

Thanks a lot