Justice B. Hill

In a presentation to a “Sports Reporting” class at Ohio University, John Brady was asked to share his thoughts about art of the interview. Brady, a journalist and visiting professor at the university, was a great choice to lead such a discussion. He has lectured extensively about the interview and has written several books on the topic, including The Interviewer’s Handbook: A Guerilla Guide.

His earlier book on interviewing, The Craft of Interviewing, has stood as the bible of this process for the better part of 25 years. But it might have been dated when he stood in front of this group  of aspiring sportswriters.

The interview process had changed, hadn’t it?

“I answer with an unequivocating yes and no,” Brady said. “Today  many of the problems — and solutions — are the same. Only different.”

He pointed out that when he wrote The Craft, the PC and the Mac Powerbook seemed like fantasies from a James Bond film.

Did anyone in the 1970s gave serious thought to what technology like this might do to or for daily journalism? And who in the hell knew what the Internet and online databases were when Woodward and Bernstein were investing a U.S. president?

But that static information isn’t all that goes into a well-crafted story, and that’s particularly so in the case of a feature, Brady said. Those human stories can’t be flushed out in databases, a point that one of the men Brady quoted in his second book stressed:

“Get out  of the office. Don’t be satisfied with the database reporting. You have to humanize the story. Facts by themselves can be very interesting.”

I can’t find fault with that perspective, because facts alone aren’t necessarily interesting. Facts, hard and unyielding as they are, certainly should not drive a feature story. What does and should drive those features are people’s words and their views — information that comes through interviews.

In his discussion with the OU students, Brady gave each of them a handout that listed tips and techniques for interviewers. Here are those dozen tips:

1. Break the ice with some conversational foreplay.

2. Tell them what you want.

3. Never reveal your whole cards.

4. Keep a poker face.

5. Prod with sounds and silence.

6. Get anecdotes. (Detailed stories)

7. Open wide, then close tight.

8. Taping tips. (“Never depend on a recorder absolutely,” he says. “Even if a recorder doesn’t break down, you will need notes on the subject’s attitude, attire, and the overall atmosphere.’)

9. Beware the four major sensitive zones.

10. Tough questions finish last. (Conflict: sex, money, religion and relationships)

11. The interviewer always rings twice. (Leave door open for follow-up questions at a later time)

12. Change the quote or the question when helpful.

Twelve tips, that’s what John Brady gave OU students. While No. 12 on his list might unsettle a lot of sports journalists, Brady didn’t shy away from it. In  retrospect, I don’t think he endorsed remaking direct quotes altogether; he didn’t seem to oppose, however, trimming and editing them.

Does Brady go too far with this? Well, I will leave that topic for a later discussion. For now, soak up these tips and finds way to use Brady’s advice in the interviews you do.