Once you have identified an interview source and scheduled your interview, the next step is to prepare your interview questions. The best interview questions are often simple, clear, and well-informed. Think of your interview as a two-way street: Although you, as the journalist, should be in control of the interview, its content, and its aims, you and your source will get to know about each other and perhaps even to trust each other throughout the interview process. Your interview should feature a well-structured but flexible series of questions in which both you and your interviewee play equally important roles. With that in mind, consider the following tips about how to craft strong interview questions.
Before you interview a source, you should always research the source, their experience, and their expertise. Start with a simple Google search, and then continue with a more strategic search based on the information you need for your story. For example, if you were interviewing Dr. Kelsey Whipple, a professor of journalism, you might begin by reading my faculty bio on the UMass website, skimming some of my course descriptions or published research, and reviewing my professional work related to the angle of your story. You might even want to look through my public social media accounts and any previous interviews I have conducted. If I’m the centerpiece of your story, you might also submit a public records request or talk to other people who know me before speaking to me.
There are several reasons for researching someone before talking to them. First, you want to make sure this potential source is the right person to interview for your story. Second, you want to prepare yourself for interviewing them. Researching a source will help you develop interview questions that are more informed and specific—and much stronger than the vague, general questions that you could ask anyone. This research will also help you to use your interview time more strategically by avoiding questions that are easily answered through cursory research, as well as questions that your source may have been asked many times already. Finally, your source will notice, based on your questions, that you did your homework, and they will appreciate that and likely offer you both more of their time and better responses.
As you begin to write interview questions, ask yourself: Is this question easy to understand? Could I answer it? Chances are that if you have to re-read a question to understand it, your source won’t have an easy time with that question either. The strongest interview questions have a clear focus on one specific topic, and they are phrased with simple, easy-to-understand wording. Interview questions should also be short and direct, and they should be something this particular source can answer based on their own knowledge and experience.
In contrast, avoid asking your source to speak for an entire group or population, rather than answering for themselves. For example, you would not want to ask me, one single journalism professor, a question like, “Are all journalism professors huge nerds?” (In addition to being rude, that question asks me to make a generalized statement about a big group of people that I am not qualified to answer.) Similarly, don’t ask your sources compound, or double-barreled, questions. These are confusing and long questions that usually pack two or more questions into one, such as “Why did you vote for this person, and what is your relationship to them?” Compound questions can be tricky for interviewees, who will usually only remember to answer one branch of the question. Instead, break these questions out into multiple, simplified and focused questions, such as “Why did you vote for this person?” and “What is your relationship to this person?”
Open-ended questions are those that ask an interviewee to provide a detailed response. For example, you might ask the open-ended questions, “What is your favorite animal?” or “Why do you love dogs?” In order to respond to these questions, an interviewee will generally be compelled to use full sentences establishing and explaining their perspectives. Open-ended questions thus generate more complete and more thoughtful responses.
On the other hand are close-ended questions, such as yes-or-no questions. You want to avoid these kinds of questions for the most part. Yes-or-no questions compel interviewees to respond with short, undetailed responses, such as a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ For example, a yes-or-no question might simply ask, “Do you like dogs?” I could answer that by just saying, “Yes,” which is neither very informative nor a good quote. That question might be okay to set up an open-ended follow-up, such as “Why do you like them?” However, they’re usually insufficient on their own. (Additionally, unless your story is specifically about dogs, it is probably unwise to restrict it to a single animal. Thus, starting with the open-ended “What is your favorite animal?” question might be better.)
Similarly, you will often want to avoid leading questions, or questions that lead an interviewee toward a specific response. Leading questions can cue interviewees to answer in the specific way that they believe the interviewer wants them to. This thus influences them to mirror your thinking instead of contributing their own. An example of a leading question might be, “Don’t you think dogs are just the greatest?” If you are a cat person, you might no longer feel comfortable being interviewed because you may start to worry about how you might be depicted in the story. There are times, though, when a leading question can be used as a signal to your interviewee. For example, to illustrate that you understand their pain after they’ve described a harrowing incident, you may ask, “That must have felt awful. What was running through your mind when you received that news?” However, those instances where a leading question is appropriate are relatively uncommon.
Although you might write your list of interview questions down in the order in which you think of them, take some time after brainstorming these questions to put them in the best order in which to ask them. It is generally helpful to start with some simple, introductory questions that help to ease the interviewee into the interview and make them comfortable with both you and the process. After that, group all questions that pertain to a specific topic together, and complete an entire topic before transitioning to the next set of questions. Structure your interview in a way that guarantees you will get all the information you need while, ideally, sticking to the time estimate you provided for the interview.
If you have a particularly difficult or uncomfortable question, put it further down on your list. You don’t want it to be so low that you may run out of time before getting to it, but you also don’t want to risk the interviewee abruptly ending an interview before you have gotten at least some useful information from them.
Although you did your research and wrote a list of informed, clear, open-ended questions, you may find that other questions arise during the interview that you did not anticipate. Do not panic! These follow-up questions are natural, and they often provide some of the best information and quotes. Good follow-up questions usually request additional context or explanation and begin with “why” or “how.” It is important to listen carefully when your source is talking so that you can catch and write down potential follow-up questions. You also need to be flexible enough to know when to introduce those follow-up questions. Often, it is best to do so immediately. However, sometimes, it makes sense to return to them a little later in the interview. It is thus useful to take notes while you are interviewing so that you can write down follow-up questions and other key information as you record an interview.
If an interviewee’s response does not fully answer the question you asked, don’t hesitate to ask that same question in a new way. Sometimes, the non-response is due to a misunderstanding of the question. Other times, it is because the initial question gave them room to wiggle out of a full response. Be persistent, and keep asking until you get an answer.
Additionally, a source’s response might create a better opportunity to follow up with a question you intended to ask later in the interview. Thus, although you might have planned to ask a source about cats with your fifth question, they may bring up cats in their answer to your second question. Thus, reorder your questions on the spot to keep a good flow for your interview. If they’ve fully addressed a question you intended to ask them later on, do not ask the question again. That tells the source you weren’t listening.
One of the best parts of being a journalist is that you get to learn and write about many different subjects every week or month. Journalists do this by researching new topics and interviewing expert sources about those topics. However, it is the sources who are the real experts. If you find yourself confused or unsure about a key fact or piece of information during the course of your interview, always, always clarify that information with your source. Ask for clarity, or compare notes. One good way to do this is by summarizing a key point and asking your source if you got the information correct. For example, you might ask, “So, you’re saying that if I need to clarify information during an interview, I should take some time to do that with the source. Is that correct?”
Nobody likes feeling dumb or revealing that they don’t fully understand something. But not fully understanding something is normal for journalists, especially when they’re tackling new topics or digging deep into a particular topic. Sources will often appreciate your honesty and feel more confident that you will accurately portray their perspective if you ask for clarifications. Moreover, even in a pessimistic scenario, it is far better to look ‘dumb’ to one person than to the potentially large audiences who will come across your work, who you’d be misinforming as a result.
Once you have asked all the questions you brainstormed—and all the follow-up and clarifying questions that arose during the course of the interview—try to end with a final open-ended question that allows your source to share anything else they think is important for you to know. This gives them a chance to bring up something you or they may have forgotten, or simply to contribute information that may be outside of the scope of your questions. A couple of examples of this type of question are, “Is there anything you’d like to add?” and “Is there anything else I didn’t ask you about that is important for me to know?” Oftentimes, the source will say “no” but will nevertheless feel empowered (and thus end the interview on a good note). But some of the best scoops and story ideas sometimes come from giving sources a chance to tell me information I didn’t even think to ask them about.
Your source just gave you 10, 30, 60, or however many minutes of their time. Thank them for it! This wraps up your time together in a polite way and lets your sources know you appreciate their time and information. This moment is also a good final chance to ask for additional contact information (such as an email address or phone number at which you can reach the source if you need to follow-up), or to schedule a follow-up interview for a future date and time.
If they were a central source in your story, or if they are the sort of person who does not often get interviewed, you may even opt to send them a copy of your story after it is published. This might make them feel even better about choosing to speak with you, and the extra attention might even make them more likely to respond to you in the future. There’s a decent chance another story will come around that requires you to speak to that source, so it is good to treat every source as a potentially recurring one.
The best interview questions are simple, clear, and focused on one specific topic. Use open-ended questions to encourage your interviewee to respond completely to your questions and perhaps to even go beyond your preconceptions.
Follow-up and clarifying questions will arise during the course of your interview. Good follow-up questions usually request additional context or explanation and begin with “why” or “how.” Be flexible in order to catch and write down potential follow-up questions as you listen to your interviewee’s responses.
Be polite yet persistent. If an interviewee is not fully answering your question, ask that question again in a different way. Sometimes, they simply didn’t get the gist of the question the first time around.
End your interview with an open-ended concluding question. This gives your interviewee an opportunity to share additional information about that you might not have cued with your interview questions.