August 23, 2010 12:40 AM UTC

Anatomy of an Interview

• 8 Comments
• by: DavidThi808

I just completed an interview of Ken Buck and technically I think it went better than any before. So I thought this would be a good time to list out what the process I use is and how it plays out. (And for any experienced journalists out there that laugh at parts of this – please post comments with suggestions. I’m still learning.)

My Approach

My number 1 goal is to add to the conversation. So any question that has already been asked I don’t want to waste everyone’s time on. Many times there is a different angle that makes visiting the same topic of interest. So learning something new.

Second, I’m not going to change anyone’s mind with a couple of sentences they’ve probably heard before. The goal is to find out what they are going to do and why. With that said, asking them to speak to counter arguments is generally of interest. I try to see issues from their point of view both to do a better job figuring out what follow-up questions to ask and to better explain them. (This is pretty easy in most cases as generally we all agree on goals, it’s how to get there where the big differences surface.)

I try to ask high level questions and then shut up to see what points they speak to, and where else they take the conversation. Many times what is not said is as illustrative as what is said. I also think the issues they go on at length about are the ones they really care about and that lets us know where their energy will really go. (Good example, Senator Bennet, Representative Polis, and Governor Ritter could easily spend an hour discussing education.)

The Constraints

So how long do I get? There’s an agreed upon time up front – and it’s never that length. I’ve had a couple of “1 hour” interviews chopped to ½ hour. On the flip side Governor Ritter (2nd interview) and Representative Perlmutter both spoke for twice the agreed upon time. As the interview progresses I watch how antsy the press aide is getting to guesstimate how much time is left (I’ve gotten pretty good at that).

Ok, so for a 1 hour interview (that’s the usual length) I figure 10 – 12 questions. First off, I come in with 20 questions since my 1st interview with Governor Ritter – he was very terse in each answer and I was having to wing it. And that means about 5 minutes per question, letting the ones on a really interesting tangent go longer because some will be shorter. On about half the topics there is 1 or 2 more questions I really want to follow up on, but not at the cost of not having time for question #10.

The Goal

So we go into the interview with two goals. I want to get a good picture of what drives them, what they will put a lot of effort in to, and how they will see issues. The candidate wants to get across the package they are selling themselves as. I sometimes get emails saying I captured who the subject is better than any other interview (strangely, most often for Republican subjects) and I take that as success. Sometimes I fell afterwards that I got the picture they wanted to sell but don’t know how much if anything I got of the real person.

For most candidates I think the approach is advantageous to them – who they really are does come out in so many ways today and so they do have to sell who they are. But I do understand why a candidate like Jane Norton would avoid it, I’m not sure how a blank slate would do in this process but I don’t think it would be positive. But for most candidates I think the interviews I do are good for them and useful to the voters.

The Process

So what’s involved? First is getting the interview set up. This runs the gamut from a single email to an ongoing series of begging and pleading over months (16 months in the case of Ed Perlmutter).

Next is figuring out the questions to ask. I come up with a couple myself but the main source is I post who I’m interviewing on ColoradoPols and ask for suggested questions. I get a ton of suggestions that are on very specific issues (I don’t use those) but I also get a lot that are perfect for general questions to illustrate who the candidate is. The difficult part of this is deciding which ones to use, and ordering them.

Then the interview which is generally a 30 – 45 minute drive in each direction plus the interview itself. Then comes writing it up which generally takes me 3 – 4 hours. When I did 3 interviews in 1 day for the Hawaii Governor’s race, that was 11 hours over the next 2 days to write them – brutal. (This part I don’t enjoy.)

The Result

I have no idea how many people read the interviews because I don’t have access to the stats on Huffington Post or Colorado Pols. But I can track hits to my blog and from the day the ballots arrive in the mail until election day I suddenly get thousands of hits daily. And that’s just for my blog. So a lot of people find them useful.

And I think I have succeeded in being fair in the interviews. I know many find it strange that I try to be favorable to each subject in their interview, yet remain very partisan outside of the interview. But the fact that most Republican candidates remain willing to sit down with me tells me that I am able to do so, and that they understand I’m able to separate the roles.

So I’m still having fun doing this.