What about interviews conducted over the course of several emails? i.e. I send you a couple of starter questions and you send me your replies and then we bounce back and forth until both of us are satisfied.

Wait, that last bit sounded bad.

Those are a *lot* better, but I still prefer phoners. Maybe it's irrational, but I'd rather *tell* someone the answer to a question I've answered a hundred times before than *write* an answer to that question. It just feels more like work (specifically, more like the interviewer's work, offloaded onto the subject). And I think the quality of the interaction over email is lower than in a high-bandwidth, realtime medium, like speech. I can *speak* 200wpm, but I only type about 70.

But email interviews are much harder on the subject, who doesn't get to collaborate with the interviewer on his answers, and has to struggle to sound interesting all on his own (not to mention, the interviewer doesn't have to do any transcribing, but the subject has to do a lot of typing).

Wow. My experience couldn't be more opposite. I recommend to most of my friends who are facing an interview that they do it via e-mail. Most people can write more articulately than they can speak, and journalists are trained to exploit naive interviewees.

By this, I don't mean that journalists intend to lie about their subjects, but they are trained to ferret in on tells and probe deeper on subjects that elicit them. It's also a common tactic to build a false sense of camaraderie with subjects in an attempt to loosen their lips. It's easy, especially for novice interviewees, to fall into the trap of thinking the journalist is on their side, when the journalist may want nothing more than a good quote with which to bury you.

I had an argument in one of my college Journalism classes with a professor who advocated exactly the same kind of tactics mentioned above. "A journalist is an actor," he said, as a sort of mantra. He boasted proudly of how many bands were afraid to let him interview them after some brutal interviews of his were published in Rolling Stone. These people are out there, and it's best to create a buffer between you and them to minimize the damage they can cause.

My two cents, anyway.

Cory, if you're asnwering the same questions a hundred times, why not keep a file of stock answers? After you've been asked the same question the 10th time, copy and paste your answer into the stockpile, and cough that up when asked the same question again. Voila! 90 words-per-second! This would also have the bonus side-effect of encouraging original questions or personal conversation.

How about interviews via IM? That's as close to a conversation as you can get online.

Interviewers usually reject boilerplate. IM's OK, but it comes back to that 70WPM/200WPM/feel like work thing.

I can see your point about typing speed, but I always try to stress the convenience angle of an interview-by-mail. Not having to be available at a specific time is a bit of a plus, particularly when on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't find it much easier to copy-and-paste answers than transcribe from my crappy Dictaphone, though. Maybe decent speech-to-text will render this argument moot.

This brings to light and an idea that I had. Boingx2 posted on audblog, which allows post via phone to a blog, although convenient for someone maybe on a long drive, a blind man without hands, or an 16 year old with no writing skills, it seems more novelty than utility. But what about a conference call? So they interview you by phone, it goes to a preview blog that you both can edit, and then gets published, to be spurt via RSS out amongst the masses. (And yes Sturat I did say spurt, no "bounce back and forth until both of us are satisfied.")

Stuart already made one of my points. In the spirit of playing Devil's Advocate, here's another: just last night, my girlfriend and I ran across a quote by me in the local alternative weekly. She asked "did they get it right?" "Yeah, well, he wouldn't have any excuse for getting it wrong since it was by e-mail."

As a freelance journalist, I've always prefered phoners. I *have* done e-mail interviews -- and know at least one editor who has no hang-ups about them -- but you always get fresher stuff by phone. Plus, as Cory says, a good interviewer throws out his question list. In fact, I usually don't have one -- I find a few key things about the person I'm talking about and try to touch on 'em, but I don't have this rigid sense of asking question X at a certain time or in a certain way. Just talk to people like they are human beings, and the rest happens naturally.

Speaking of which, I used to write occassionally for Shift (RIP) and another business publication that is stiffing me on a pay check. (Long story.) I'm a writer/journalist in need of some karma myself right now, regardless of what it is. I've done editing work, write fiction semi-professionally on the side, and should be getting published in Spin magazine next month. If anyone has any leads on writing/editing work, please contact me at zhoule@magma.ca. I'd really appreciate it.

Are most email interviews done in such a way that all the questions are sent at once? It seems like a back-and-forth series of emails would be a good compromise.

IRC has worked for me in the past. It means that the conversation can stay fresh, and that the interviewer and interviewee can simultaneously get a copy of the conversation without having to have the tape transcribed. ...Probably wouldn't work so well if everyone involved didn't type reasonably quickly, but so far that hasn't been a problem.

You can even see hesitation in real time, as people backspace to change their wording.

One thing y'all may not be taking into account is that listening to Cory rant is much more fun than reading it. :-)

Edited by author 03-03-2003 03:34 PM
I've done a ton of interviews when my oasismag.com site was a monthly magazine, and whenever I did an e-mail/Q&A type thing that was pure laziness. If I really, really liked the subject of the interview, then I would always insist on in person interviews or phoners at worst.

Even then, once the interview was over, I would rarely do a Q&A format, unless I thought it flowed so well that paraphrasing, transition, and set-ups would get in the way (which is completely rare).

However, whenever anyone contributed to the site back then, it was always e-mail interviews, "so I won't have to transcribe anything." of course, my sit was all volunteer-based, so any time i didn't have to crank out a cover, it was fine by me.

Of course, once I finish my novel, anyone who wants an interview will get one, bad format or not, since any publicity can lead to book sales and further name recognition.

Jeff

There are many genius inventors that got rich off of patents. Alexander Grahm Bell and the inventor of the integrated circut come to mind. This isn't to say that the patent office doesn't often do a bad job at judging what should be patentable, but that is government agencies for you. I find it interesting that when the patent office does a bad job some call for the elimation of patents, but when the education system does a bad job, the same people call for more spending.

According to Scott Adams in his latest book, email interviews are just a weasel's way of avoiding work. http://www.technation.com:8080/ramgen/102202_1.rm