on teling the truth ...

... in interviews. For those times when you're heading off to what might be a difficult interview for a tough story, listen to what NYT columnist David Carr tells NPR's Terry Gross.

One of the first things he often says to sources is that the story is "likely to be big. What do you think the story is that I should tell?"

Here's more:

Historically, I had been a reporter who was very fond of making speeches and very fond of telling people what their stories were about," he says. "[As journalists], we're people who just show up and declare ourselves instant experts on all manner of stories. And we often are only taking a very blunt-force guess about what's going on, and I think it always behooves us to ask the people, especially if you're aspiring to do something good, 'What do you think is going on? What do you think this is about?' "

Carr tells his sources that they shouldn't expect a fluff piece; he doesn't want anyone to be genuinely surprised by what they find in his stories.

"I don't want to sit up in the middle of the night and wonder whether I was unfair to the person — that I didn't communicate to them what is coming," he says. "I don't want anybody to open up one of my stories and have their nose broken by what they read — although I do have to say, at the beginning of the week, I wrote a really mean column, and I didn't tell anybody involved, so I guess that's not always true."

And then there's this...

Speaking of the demise of journalism: President Obama granted FOX bloviator Bill O'Reilly an interview on SuperBowl Sunday. O'Reilly interrupted him FORTY-EIGHT times. And while chatting briefly about how people perceive him, O'Reilly spelled it out for Obama thus: "They hate you."

Go here to see all 48 of the interruptions. Or here, to watch the whole debacle. A case study in how not to do it. Especially if the president ever grants you an interview. bk

what kind of a twee would you be

WWD.com reports on a sit-down interview between New Yorker media critic Ken Auletta and Barbara Walters and Steve Kroft at Syracuse University. Read it for some quick and savvy pointers on interviewing technique, along with an explanation of Walters' oft-mocked Q.

More good stuff, and in more depth, here and here. Worth a read, both. bk

p.s. Oh: A palm tree. Location, location, location.

I don't know who's writing your questions...

One of my loyal readers told me tonight that today's post was a big fat bore. I didn't think so, but whatever...

So anyhow, remember that post about interviewing a few weeks back where I referenced John Sawatsky's interviewing techniques vis-a-vis (oops, getting boring again) Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin re the Supreme Court?

Here's a case study in how NOT to interview -- in how the opposite approach can backfire bigtime. Object lesson: any time your source responds to a question with "Is this a joke? Is that a real question?" -- you've blown it. Watch the video of an exchange between vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and WFTV reporter Barbara West. It hits the fan about two minutes in. (Be sure to jump past the online ad.)

Biden: 1, West, 0.

This one, not a bore. Alrighty? bk

...can you think of any?

According to interview guru John Sawatsky, you don't need to be a pit bull named Bruiser to conduct a good interview. In a piece I read so long ago that i can't remember where I put it, he posits that the best interviews, in fact, are about discipline on the part of the reporter, rather than the power differential between interviewer and source. They are about listening, leading the source down the path toward the given goal: staying in control by playing nice.

Which brings up Katie Couric's exchange with Sarah Palin wrt the Supreme Court. Watch how Couric's quiet little follow-up gets the job done: