Podcaster's Portal: performing questions

Performing questions

IN THIS ARTICLE

Unlike newspaper interviewers, podcasters perform their questions
Think carefully about your performance and practice to ensure you sound authoritative, credible and interesting
Take care to maintain objectivity in the way you phrase your questions and respond to your guest's answers (for factual interviews)

By Jonathan Halls

I do a lot of work with experienced newspaper and magazine journalists. Often in my courses, they suggest they should skip the 'interview part.'

"I've been interviewing people for the past 20 years, Jonathan," they usually start.

"I know how it's done and I've interviewed everyone from the janitor to the Secretary of State. Why don't we just skip this part?"

Good question. One of the things that makes an audio interview different to one for a newspaper or magazine is that you are performing.

In print, you gather information for your story. In audio and video, you do three things. You gather information through questions, as you do in print. But in addition to that you perform your questions. They need to be easily understood by your interviewee and listener. And unlike a print interview, it does matter if your stumble or fumble your questions. The third thing you do in an audio or video interview is coach your interviewee to sound or look appropriate.

This means, you’re not just thinking about your questions. You’re also thinking about how you sound and making sure your questions make sense. You don’t want to be on tape asking and repeating poorly phrased questions.

Let’s discuss a few things you need to consider.

Podcast Performance 101

The first thing to do when conducting an interview is to relax. While you are performing, most of your listener’s interest will actually be focused on your guest.

Relax

Make sure you are comfortable. If you’re in a studio, ensure your posture enables you to breathe and project well.

On location, find a space you’re comfortable with. This is important when you’re holding a microphone, which can get heavy after a while.

Prepare your questions

Make sure you are prepared with your questions. Until you are experienced, you should always script them. This takes away a lot of the pressure of having to think on your feet and avoid phrases that won’t work on the audio medium.

Make sure you listen to your guest. Guests will often share a lot of interesting thoughts. And you can pick up on those thoughts with questions you may not have thought about.

Take a breath

To avoid stuttering, or having to rephrase your question, take a breath and don’t rush in. Take the time to think of a question so you can phrase it eloquently. If it’s recorded, you can always edit the pause out.

Often you will find that what seemed like a long pause during the interview was actually very short.

Let your guest finish

If you’re a passionate person who likes to talk a lot and talk fast, you may find yourself jumping ahead of the guest. This may lead to you itching to ask the next question. Make sure you let your guest finish. Remember, she’s the important one.

Impartiality on your factual podcast

We’ve already discussed interview philosophy. One of the important things is to be impartial. During an interview it is very easy to let your own ideas and opinions color the questions.

It’s also very easy to let your own views become apparent. In order to make your guest feel comfortable enough to open up and answer your questions, you need to develop a very good rapport.

When you have developed rapport, you may find yourself agreeing verbally to what your guest says. If your listener hears this, you will lose your credibility as an objective interviewer.

Small and simple things such as an “aha,” or “right,” spoken in response to your guest, which you use to encourage her to speak more, can be perceived by the listener as tacit agreement.

As an interviewer you must be very careful not to utter anything like this. But you do need to encourage your guest. The only way you can give feedback to her, is to nod your head. Nod, but don’t speak.