Interviewing: Professional Journalism Techniques

Course details

Hello and thank you for your interest in this course! Interviews are a major instrument in journalism. They play two different roles.

First, interviews are a certain journalistic copy form. You know these question and answer conversations from print and online newspapers and magazines and also from radio and TV. Also talk shows are a special form of interviews.

Second, journalists use interviews as a specific investigation method. In this case, the conversation isn't published or broadcasted, but provides important insights a report is based on.

Interviews are an essential part of a journalist's toolkit. So, it's important for a journalist to master interview techniques.

Interviews are way more than a nice chat. They require a clear method and solid planning. This is what you're going to learn in this course.

We will take a close look at the roles and functions of both the interviewer and the interviewee - also called interlocutor.

You will learn different kinds of questions and when to use which.

We will talk about subjectivism, about politeness versus aggression in interviews, about closeness versus distance, and about cooperation versus competition. You need to know when to use which tactic.

Thank you and see you in the course!