Interviewing

A practical guide for citizen journalists

Why interview?

Chapters

Developed by Angie Chuang and Lynne Perri, American University School of Communication

How to edit quotes

Many citizen journalists say that it took them time to learn that with quotes, more is often less. Sometimes you have a great interview with an eloquent speaker, and you are tempted to present what they say all in quotes. Or maybe you’re afraid you’ll take an interviewee’s words out of context if you paraphrase or edit their quotes.

But reading long quotes can cause a reader to glaze over, and often the presentation of an interview benefits from paraphrases that add some context or help the reader interpret what the speaker is saying. Also, the quotes you do use will seem more compelling if there are fewer of them.

Take a look at these two examples, written from an actual interview with Alyssa Katz, editor of The Eminent Domain, for Chapter 1 of this module. Which one do you find easier to read and glean meaning from?

Katz is a great interviewee, so it would be easy to use her quotes with little editing, as in the “Before” example.

But notice how the “After” example, which has been edited, uses a couple of particularly strong quotes while paraphrasing much of the information Katz gave in her interview. The meaning doesn’t change, but the edited example is more concise and easier to read.

Before

The Eminent Domain “is a site that provides a forum for interest in economic development in New York City. We get numerous players from numerous aspects of community development to address a whole mix of issues,” says Alyssa Katz, the site’s editor. “There is a real skepticism, and sometimes a lack of interest, about using journalistic techniques, because they are not part of the culture of community organizing.

“Community organizers see journalism in the context of, ‘I am going to be in the background manipulating what someone else tells me. I am going to make it part of my message.’ They would rather spend their time staging a demonstration and getting media coverage. Then they have the stage and there’s no mediation,” she says.

“It’s just not part of the Internet’s self-expression culture. Interest in using media seems to be very much about personal expression. When people think about online writing, they think of it as the blog medium, or what they do on MySpace or other sites,” Katz says.

“There’s a sense of, it’s about power relationships. The interviewer-interviewee relationship presumes authority that the interviewer has and the interviewee doesn’t. People see interviewing as saying, ‘I’m an authority,’ ” she says.

“There’s always a benefit to getting minds together and getting more information out. It’s a question of what are you doing with an interview? Is it an inverted pyramid, or can it be something else? I’ve encouraged Q and As, transcripts, videos. ... Also, one article was just written submissions from the members themselves. It was a mix of voices framed by us.”

After

The Eminent Domain, a site that focuses on community development in New York City neighborhoods, comes from a community-organizer ethos, which prizes unmediated voices. Journalistic interviews run contrary to that worldview, says Alyssa Katz, the site’s editor.

“Community organizers see journalism in the context of, ‘I am going to be in the background manipulating what someone else tells me,’” she says. “They would rather spend their time staging a demonstration and getting media coverage. Then they have the stage and there’s no mediation.”

The Internet has evolved as a medium of self-expression, where bloggers, people posting on Facebook or MySpace or those appearing on YouTube videos have direct access to an audience. Traditional interviewing doesn’t have that power-to-the-people feel.

“It’s about power relationships,” Katz says. “The interviewer-interviewee relationship presumes authority that the interviewer has and the interviewee doesn’t.”

But a more expansive definition of interviewing, one that goes beyond just journalism, can help community groups bring more voices to the table, she says. Interviews can also help various stakeholders (some of whom may be shy about commenting) find a way to ensure that their viewpoints are represented in a community discussion, whether about a new condo development or class sizes in the public schools. Video, Q&As, transcripts, aggregations of posted online comments— all cut out the “middleman” and serve the purpose of an interview.