Scribd
Upload
12 views9 pages

Essential Interviewing and Reporting Tips

This document provides guidance for conducting effective interviews and summarizing speeches. It recommends preparing questions in advance, being courteous and flexible during the interview, listening more than speaking, and moving from general to sensitive questions. For summarizing speeches, it advises identifying the main point, using attribution, checking for contradictions, avoiding personal opinions, and including audience reaction and size when relevant. The overall aim is to convey the speaker's message and examine it objectively.

Uploaded by

Rajendran Narayanan
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
12 views9 pages

Essential Interviewing and Reporting Tips

This document provides guidance for conducting effective interviews and summarizing speeches. It recommends preparing questions in advance, being courteous and flexible during the interview, listening more than speaking, and moving from general to sensitive questions. For summarizing speeches, it advises identifying the main point, using attribution, checking for contradictions, avoiding personal opinions, and including audience reaction and size when relevant. The overall aim is to convey the speaker's message and examine it objectively.

Uploaded by

Rajendran Narayanan
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

THE ART OF INTERVIEWING

BEFORE THE INTERVIEW


• Interview ideas can come from PR, papers, websites etc
• Question the source’s motives (share info? Propaganda? Malign a rival?)
• Email, phone or personal interview?
• Vox Pop?
• Go prepared
• If you sense that a person is feeling intimidated, you could give questions in advance
• Be on time
• Don’t dress shabbily
• Find out how much time s/he has – you don’t want important questions left unanswered
THE INTERVIEW
• Always make notes even if you are recording
• Record with permission
• Be courteous
• Be patient with garrulous people
• Never be flippant. Flippancy may make you credible with a soldier, but not with a brigadier
• If the interviewee is nervous, put him/her at ease (Studs Terkel: I’m inept)
• Best to begin with a question like, how did it come about…?
• Begin with open questions (how do you feel? What is the ideal/nightmare scenario?)
INTERVIEWING TIPS
• Begin with general questions and then move to the sensitive or controversial ones (some
of your critics suggest…)
• Listen… ask questions only when he/she stops speaking
• Be flexible – abandon prepared questions if you need to
• Look for description
• Ask for jargon to be explained
• If a person does not want to talk for a particular reason, accept it
• End the interview with – Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?
AFTER THE INTERVIEW
• Transcribe your notes ASAP
• Preserve your notes – it could be needed as evidence later
• Should you show your copy to the source before it is published
WRITING THE SPEECH REPORT
SPEECH REPORTS
• Conferences, lecture series, seminars, functions
• Reporters have two jobs: To pass on the message that the speaker
is trying to convey and to examine that message
• Try and get a draft of the speech beforehand so that you can go
prepared
• Never report a speech chronologically (The speaker began by
saying…. Then he said…)
• Start with the most important point: The lead is usually a Who or
What lead
SPEECH REPORTS
• Attribution: Frequent attribution is necessary if there is only
one speaker
• Check for contradictions
• Don’t add your opinion to the speech (As he rightly pointed
out…)
• If the speaker was hostile to the audience, give instances or
provide quotes
SPEECH REPORTS
• Sometimes, audience reaction is important. So is audience
size (seven people?)
• Mood is important sometimes. Eg: Citizens’ meeting

You might also like