1. What's Your Interviewing Problem?
The Obvious Problems.
The Hidden Problems.
2. What is an Interview?
Nonjudgmental demeanor: The basic principle.
How journalists obtain information.
Illustrating the journalistic interview.
The creative interview.
The creative question.
Types of interviews: directive and nondirective.
3. The Ten Stages of the Interview.
1. Defining the purpose of the interview.
2. Conducting background research.
3. Requesting an interview appointment.
4. Planning the interview.
5. Meeting your respondent, breaking the ice.
6. Asking your first questions.
7. Establishing an easy rapport.
8. Asking the bomb.
9. Recovering from the bomb.
10. Concluding the interview.
4. Elements of the Interview: A Case History.
Defining the purpose.
Planning the interview.
On the phone.
Some points to remember.
5. Asking Questions.
Phrase your questions simply and clearly.
Open versus closed questions.
Sequencing of questions: the funnel.
Probe (follow-up) questions.
Factual questions: The five W's.
Conceptually defining questions.
Leading, loaded, and junkpile questions.
6. The Conversational Dynamics of Interviewing.
The value of research.
Scanning the literature of interviewing.
The place of the gentle question.
Essentials of personal communication.
7. Being Interviewed.
Plight of the sudden celebrity.
Why be interviewed?
A national organization for news sources?
8. Planning Your Interview.
Planning starts with purpose.
Requesting an appointment.
Do your homework.
Assessing character and interests.
Preparing areas of inquiry.
The game plan.
Keep your plans flexible.
A planning footnote.
9. Lessons from Failure.
10. Learning to Listen.
How to become a professional listener.
11. Journalistic Observation.
The new research requirements of "literary journalism."
Three types of journalistic observation.
What to observe.
12. Interviewing for Quotes and Anecdotes.
Learning to recognize quotations.
Interviewing for quotations.
Eliciting the elusive anecdote.
13. Telephoning, Note Taking, and Taping.
Interviewing by telephone.
Using tape recorders.
14. Special Problems.
Asking sensitive questions.
Coping with hostility.
Are they telling the truth?
Nudging hazy memories.
Off the record.
The news conference.
What will you write about me?
The boring respondent.
When you're unprepared.
15. Electronic Aids to Interviewing.
The E-mail interview.
Securing help through the Internet.
Picking up news leads
Securing documents through the Internet.
16. The Broadcast Interview.
How broadcast differs.
Three types of broadcast interviews.
Asking questions for broadcast.
17. Covering a Newsbeat.
How interviewing differs on the beat.
The basics of newsbeat coverage.
Getting started on a newsbeat.
Basic steps for a newsbeat.
Three sources of news.
Blind questions for newsbeat coverage.
18. Multiple-Interview Projects.
The nature of multi-interview projects.
Special requirements of the project interview.
19. The Personality Interview.
Types of personality interviews.
Uses for the personality interview.
Problems of coping with personality.
Conducting the personality interview.
Twenty personality questions.
Remembering the interviewer.
20. Ethics of the Interview.
Invasion of privacy.
A media source's "Bill of Rights."
21. Ten Steps Toward Truth.
Appendix A: Interviewing Exercises.
Appendix B: Sample Interview Report.