New Interview Techniques PDF Guide

Current points out a new interview skills resource is available. Virtuoso Voices, an interview clip service, presents some new ways to think about interviewing performing artists and interviewing in general. The discussion began based on the “Interviewing Performing Artists: A Practical Guide” session at the 2008 Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio (AMPPR) Conference in Mobile, Ala. The result is a 25-page PDF interviewing techniques manual called Interviewing 3.0.

Some highlights include Wally Faas, who reminds you to avoid interjecting your reactions like, “No kidding,” “I didn’t know that,” “Hmmmm” or “Wow.” Fass says when he used to do that, it was a natural reaction as a partner in a conversation. But, as a listener, one finds it distracting. Laughing at an interviewee’s jokes is the one exception.

Radio host Greg Kot says of interview techniques, “Do not interrupt the answer. Let the person finish, and then pause a few ticks more before following up, especially if you’re dealing with a sensitive subject. The pregnant pause can be your friend. In a live interview it can be awkward, and often the interviewer rushes to fill in the dead space and then quickly changes the subject, which lets the interviewee off the hook. It’s worth it to wait it out more often than not. Remember, not all interviewees will be as skilled with words as the interviewer, and they sometimes need time to formulate answers, or to think of what they want to say. Don’t rush them, and above all don’t talk over them. The words you stomp over could valuable, and lead right into your next question.”

David Brown, host/producer, KUT’s “Texas Music Matters” and former host of American Public Media’s “Marketplace,” who says music interviews generally fall in three categories: a) the up-and-comer who’s genuinely grateful for your attention and is eager to be ‘led along’ by the interviewer; b) the second-tier ‘almost famous’ who’s more critically acclaimed than commercially successful and has already received a certain amount of buzz, and c) the commercially successful and/or established artist. Here’s what David Brown suggests for each category:

As: Unless well schooled in p.r., the artist may well need your help to be put at ease. If taping, assure the guest that this is editable. Talk a little in advance before you’re ‘on’, and casually (but never insincerely) flatter them and their music. You, the interviewer, will probably have to frame the ‘what makes them special’ in your lede. The interview can be a great place for the listener to meet the artist and make an initial personal connection. Subjects like family and home can be goldmines. If interviewing a band, focus on one musician (the leader)—otherwise, the nervousness of everyone else tends to make the interview dissolve into giggly small talk and useless chatter.

Bs: These are the hardest to get right. It isn’t unusual for B’s to wear sunglasses in the studio and radiate ‘rock star’ attitude, but this is usually just a mask for insecurity. Chat with the artist a few minutes before the interview gets ‘rolling’, and try to make a human connection (the travails of the road, the fans, hometown small talk, etc.). Not only does this ease the artist, often during this pre-interview you get a sense of what matters to them. Play off that. Don’t hesitate to ask the artist what he/she wants to talk about. Ask about the future: ‘How do they define success’? Biggest creative obstacles at the moment?

Cs: Generally these are pretty easy. C’s have often done a million interviews, and most feel they haven’t anything to ‘prove’, so you won’t usually get much attitude. The challenge here is to think in advance of a narrative arc for the interview—a ‘backstory’ or theme that will make your interview memorable. Sometimes, this can be a direct riff on the theme of an album and how it relates to current events, or a progression of work. Another approach is a ‘state of the art’ interview, where you give the artist a platform to talk about culture, the music industry, songwriting, innovation…sometimes these can even make news. Since C’s are already commodities on the cultural landscape, hearing what they have to say about other facets of life from the political to the spiritual can make for compelling listening, while subtly providing insight on the artist’s music.

The interview techniques PDF booklet is a great resource for community media producers.

Disaster Coverage Guides (Eng/Sp)

The International Center for Journalists has issued an online guidebook designed to help journalists everywhere prepare for future disaster coverage. The ICFJ is a professional organization, aimed at promoting quality journalism worldwide in the belief that independent, vigorous media are crucial in improving the human condition.

A PDF version of the guide, including an extended text and additional sections, can be downloaded in English as well as downloaded in Spanish.

‘Objective’ vs. ‘Advocacy’ Journalism

Free Speech Radio News’ Nathan Moore offered some thoughts on this issue to the GRC list. The following is posted in full to add to the conversation.

Back when I was the News Facilitator at WORT, I did some scouring to find alternative models to both “objective” journalism and “advocacy” journalism.  There is much confusion about what those two terms mean, and even more confusion about what other models might lie out there.

Hutchins Commission

One terrific find was the Hutchins Commission report, which was published back in 1947.  The commission was composed of a bunch of scholars, brought together to address a broad array of questions dealing with the future of a free press in a society dramatically changed from the society out of which the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grew. According to the commission, by 1947, we lived in a time where there are so many competing opinions and viewpoints and so many things being published in so many different media that no one person can study and review ALL matter relevant to many of the important decisions today. Given the changed circumstances of society, the Hutchins Commission grappled with the question of what the role of a free press — or for that matter the First Amendment — is or should be today.

A few quotes relevant to this discussion:

—- “Freedom of the press is freighted with the responsibility of providing the current intelligence needed by a free society”

—- “It is no longer enough to report the fact truthfully. It is now necessary to report the truth about the fact.”

—- “Too much of the regular output of the press consists of a miscellaneous succession of stories and images which have no relation to the typical lives of real people anywhere. The result is a meaninglessness, flatness, distortion, and the perpetuation of misunderstanding… The press emphasizes the exceptional rather than the representative; the sensational rather than the significant. The press is preoccupied with these incidents to such an extent that the citizen is not supplied the information and discussion he needs to discharge his responsibilities to the community.”

Philip Meyer’s “Public Journalism”

So while the Hutchins Commission points to the makings of a framework, perhaps the best articulation of an alternative to both “advocacy” and “objective” journalisms comes from a professor at the University of North Carolina - Philip Meyer.  He lays it all out in page one of his essay, “Public Journalism and the Problem of Objectivity.”

This excerpt comes from an article:

One measure of the discomfort that journalists feel over the concept of public journalism is the great variety of names given it, e.g. civic journalism, citizen journalism, community journalism, or communitarian journalism. It’s as though all who try some version of it want to distance themselves from the questionable practices of the others. At the core of these efforts, however, lies an interesting and potentially useful new idea – even though it may be an idea that is in serious danger of being captured by people whom many of us would regard as the bad guys.

Part of the blame for the confusion must go to the early promoters of public journalism who have steadfastly refused to give it a definition or anything more than a vague theoretical structure. Because it is an idea in development, they say, a definition would needlessly limit it. Maybe so. But one consequence is that debating public journalism is like arguing over a Rorschach test. Each sees in it the manifestation of his or her fondest hopes or worst fears.

Anyone prepared to defend it, therefore, should be very specific about what is being defended. The public journalism in which I am interested in participating has the following defining elements:

- A desire to rebuild a community’s sense of itself. This amounts to a long-delayed realization by newspapers that they and the cause of their problems are parts of a single system. As John Gardner told a seminal meeting of Knight-Ridder editorial writers in 1989, “Newspaper readership is unlikely to turn upward as long as the sense of community continues downward… their fate is linked.”

- A longer attention span. Instead of flitting from event to event, a news medium should stay with a problem or issue — even at the risk of redundancy — until it has focused community attention on all its aspects and citizens can deliberate rationally about it.

- A willingness to go deeply into explaining the systems that direct our lives. Event-focused reporting is not just narrow in time, it is shallow in depth. It does not help the audience see beyond the surface and into the underlying sources of the community’s problems.

- More attention to the rational middle ground of issues and less attention to extremes. In teaching statistical concepts to reporters, I notice how irresistibly they are drawn to the tails of the normal distribution. They sense news in those bizarre extremes. But in democratic decision making, most of the people, and their actions, are found in the middle.

- A preference for substance over tactics in covering political argument. With his The Making of the President 1960, Theodore White inspired a genre of political writing that treats an election as a sporting event. Every move is evaluated, not for its effect on the community, but for its tactical value to the political player. The motivation of politicians is a thing worth knowing, but it is far from the only thing.

- A desire to foster deliberation. Expressing your views is a good thing. Making an earnest attempt to understand someone else’s views is equally important. Helping and encouraging members of a community to make that earnest attempt at reciprocal understanding is a key aspect of the public journalism we need.

Each of these six goals is consistent with the traditional notion of the journalist as a free society’s watchdog. Their purpose is to focus the watchdog’s effort in a time of information overload. This focus, not the underlying function, is the new element. It is needed because of the transition from a society where information was scarce to one where it is in surplus. The new scarce good is public attention. Focusing the light of public attention on any one problem long enough to spark discourse leading to a solution is the object of public journalism.


Where that leaves us

This concept of “Public Journalism” very much recognizes that journalists are part of their stories and that they play a critical role in society.  But rather than saying simply, go forth and be free to do whatever you want and call it journalism, the model suggests ways to handle and enact this recognition.

A few comparisons to FSRN have been made in this email thread.  While I have no idea whether the FSRN Reporter Guidelines writers had read Meyer’s article, it does occur to me that there is some similarity in the journalism that FSRN practices and Meyer’s notion of a “public journalism.”  Like Meyer, I find that this is the sort of journalism that I am interested in participating in.

None of this is to speak to Flashpoints directly or the current situation at KPFA.  But in terms of the future of progressive media, I find it to be a useful model to think about.  An interpretation, or more likely several interpretations, of such a model could make for some robust journalism in community radio that does more than simply split the difference between “objective” and advocacy journalism.

What is Digital Justice? Some Basics

digital justiceWith the Allied Media Conference’s announcement of a new Detroit organization’s formation, a number of disparate concepts have found a name: digital justice. But what is digital justice, and why should you care?

Digital justice’s nearest cousin is media justice, a favorite target of Michelle Malkin. Digital justice’s basic idea is that communication is a human right, and that access, participation, common ownership and healthy communities are central principles.

Digital justice values diverse methods of communication, including other languages. Digital justice provides multiple layers of communications infrastructure, according to the Detroit group, in order to ensure every member of the community has access to emergency information.

Not unlike media justice, digital justice prioritizes the participation of people who have been traditionally excluded from and attacked by media and technology. Free and open tools are emphasized to foster maximum community access.

Finally, digital justice integrates media and technology into education in order to transform teaching and learning, to value multiple learning styles and to expand the process of learning beyond the classroom and across the life span, according to organizers.

This banner ensures many projects, from Indymedia efforts to open-source software to the digital divide, are included. It remains to be seen if digital justice can grow to the heights media justice has achieved, but the future looks bright.

New Interview Techniques PDF Guide

microphone checkSorry for being so far off my media training focus for you who come here for that, but here’s a good one. For my community media friends, I’ve posted much over time about good on-air interview techniques. Even if you aren’t a media person, having the skill of talking with people will take you far.

Current points out a new interview skills resource is available. Virtuoso Voices, an interview clip service, presents some new ways to think about interviewing performing artists and interviewing in general. The discussion began based on the “Interviewing Performing Artists: A Practical Guide” session at the 2008 Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio (AMPPR) Conference in Mobile, Ala. The result is a 25-page PDF interviewing techniques manual called Interviewing 3.0.

Some highlights include Wally Faas, who reminds you to avoid interjecting your reactions like, “No kidding,” “I didn’t know that,” “Hmmmm” or “Wow.” Fass says when he used to do that, it was a natural reaction as a partner in a conversation. But, as a listener, one finds it distracting. Laughing at an interviewee’s jokes is the one exception.

Radio host Greg Kot says of interview techniques, “Do not interrupt the answer. Let the person finish, and then pause a few ticks more before following up, especially if you’re dealing with a sensitive subject. The pregnant pause can be your friend. In a live interview it can be awkward, and often the interviewer rushes to fill in the dead space and then quickly changes the subject, which lets the interviewee off the hook. It’s worth it to wait it out more often than not. Remember, not all interviewees will be as skilled with words as the interviewer, and they sometimes need time to formulate answers, or to think of what they want to say. Don’t rush them, and above all don’t talk over them. The words you stomp over could valuable, and lead right into your next question.”

David Brown, host/producer, KUT’s “Texas Music Matters” and former host of American Public Media’s “Marketplace,” who says music interviews generally fall in three categories: a) the up-and-comer who’s genuinely grateful for your attention and is eager to be ‘led along’ by the interviewer; b) the second-tier ‘almost famous’ who’s more critically acclaimed than commercially successful and has already received a certain amount of buzz, and c) the commercially successful and/or established artist. Here’s what David Brown suggests for each category:

As: Unless well schooled in p.r., the artist may well need your help to be put at ease. If taping, assure the guest that this is editable. Talk a little in advance before you’re ‘on’, and casually (but never insincerely) flatter them and their music. You, the interviewer, will probably have to frame the ‘what makes them special’ in your lede. The interview can be a great place for the listener to meet the artist and make an initial personal connection. Subjects like family and home can be goldmines. If interviewing a band, focus on one musician (the leader)—otherwise, the nervousness of everyone else tends to make the interview dissolve into giggly small talk and useless chatter.

Bs: These are the hardest to get right. It isn’t unusual for B’s to wear sunglasses in the studio and radiate ‘rock star’ attitude, but this is usually just a mask for insecurity. Chat with the artist a few minutes before the interview gets ‘rolling’, and try to make a human connection (the travails of the road, the fans, hometown small talk, etc.). Not only does this ease the artist, often during this pre-interview you get a sense of what matters to them. Play off that. Don’t hesitate to ask the artist what he/she wants to talk about. Ask about the future: ‘How do they define success’? Biggest creative obstacles at the moment?

Cs: Generally these are pretty easy. C’s have often done a million interviews, and most feel they haven’t anything to ‘prove’, so you won’t usually get much attitude. The challenge here is to think in advance of a narrative arc for the interview—a ‘backstory’ or theme that will make your interview memorable. Sometimes, this can be a direct riff on the theme of an album and how it relates to current events, or a progression of work. Another approach is a ‘state of the art’ interview, where you give the artist a platform to talk about culture, the music industry, songwriting, innovation…sometimes these can even make news. Since C’s are already commodities on the cultural landscape, hearing what they have to say about other facets of life from the political to the spiritual can make for compelling listening, while subtly providing insight on the artist’s music.

The interview techniques PDF booklet is a great resource for community media producers.

Overlooked Audacity Tools

audacity-1.3.4In preparing to train volunteers on the open-source audio editor Audacity, I was reminded of several tools that can be of use when editing your pieces. Power users will no doubt recall this stuff, but for new Audacity users, these tools will save you lots of time in preparing your work for broadcast.

Label tracks – these allow you to annotate a file, or in other words, to mark locations on a track for later reference. They’re very helpful, for example, with a long interview in which you need to mark certain quotations for later use. You create label tracks by clicking Project→New Label Track.

Trim Outside Selection – accessible as the button on the Edit toolbar or Ctrl+T, this tool permits you to trim all audio not in the selection range.

Align With Zero – this function allows you to line up a selected track with alignments you may need in your editing. Click Project→Align Tracks…→Align with Zero to line up tracks with the zero point of the file.

Keyboard Shortcuts – these will make your editing much faster. Check under Preferences→Keyboard to view the existing shortcuts or to set your own shortcuts.

Media Organizing Lab: Negotiations

negotiationThis is the continuation of a five-part series on media organizing I originally started several weeks ago, but had to put off due to work.

In my capacity, I am often tasked with negotiations. I have had many successes, but also made lots of mistakes.

Why would you need to negotiate in a media organization? Maybe you are bringing in new programs and elements and need to address them delicately. Or perhaps changes affect infrastructure. Effective negotiating is a skill you can carry on for years to come.

New media leadership is inevitably tasked at various times with negotiations. I have done both hardball and softball negotiating. Hardball negotiating (bringing a negotiation to a conclusion quickly with the power of authority) is a last resort. I highly recommend those brought in as managers explore the practice of win-win negotiations. Though such wins are usually a case of one wins more than the other, the point is to formulate positive results out of a negotiation.

Conflict in negotiation is inevitable. Concessions are easier to make when one makes considerations for others. Be creative with solutions and determine nature of the conflict. Compromise and collaboration can be engaged in on a variety of ways. Some methods include:


  • Educate others about benefits of particular negotiations, if they need such education.

  • Respect sensibilities. Over-sensitivity can be an issue of ego at times.


If you can lead someone through a negotiation, it will be a lot easier.

Tactics I have used to effectively negotiate a solution include trying to find out what is on the other person’s agenda; appealing to shared values; and focusing on process and policy.

Negotiating is an important skill for new managers, organizers and facilitators in media organizations. Done well, a good negotiation can make new managers loved, so tread lightly.

3 Reasons PubMedia Needs Spanish

accentYesterday, I received an anonymous letter from a listener upset about the presence of Spanish-language programming on community radio. I hear this complaint quite a bit.

Not all the concerns are simple ones. Generally the worries are expressed by well-intentioned, but ill-informed, people. Other times, with grumblings about a “Mexican takeover” and discrimination against whites, the views expressed are simply racist, with Spanish-language programming on community media just a vehicle for ugly conspiracy theories. Neither understands the importance of Spanish-language programming for community media in terms of service and growth.

Why is Spanish-language programming on English-language community media important? There are many reasons, but narrowing it to a few is easy.

Reason #1: Not all Spanish-language programming is the same.

Just as one would never equate New Kids on the Block to the Temptations, not all Spanish-language programming is the same because it is in the same language. While this might strike Latinos as the ‘duh’ point, you would be absolutely flabbergasted to know many monolingual English speakers argue community media should not be interested in Spanish-language programming because the language is represented on other outlets. By this logic, community media shouldn’t program music or talk programming since others do so too. Spanish-language media is just as diverse, if not more so, than English-language media, and there is plenty of room of different ideas. Public media provides an avenue for diverse multilingual programming.

Reason #2: Spanish-language communities are not homogeneous.

Mexicans are a large segment of the Latino population in the region, but there are many diverse cultures represented, from across South America, for example, as well as different Mexican cultural traditions. Many of these audiences are just as dissatisfied with their options as English-speakers are. Community media in Spanish thus serves a community within a community, just like English speakers who are regular public media listeners. And there is great content out there, but not nearly enough outlets willing to take a risk on doing so.

Reason #3: Spanish-language programming by public media serves an important community service function.

Many people may not realize virtually every major (and even minor) Spanish-language media organization is owned by an English-language conglomerate. These venues, like their commercial English-language counterparts, do not prioritize educational programming as they should. The tremendous influence they have (Spanish-language radio, for instance, generates massive listenership) is squandered as badly as English-language media is: with shock jocks, come-ons and lowest-common-denominator programming that rarely speaks to the betterment of anyone but the networks out to draw audiences for advertisers. When these stations and newspapers do spend time on community service, critics say this effort is mostly symbolic and relegated to less than ideal hours. Community radio and television have a big role to play for communities that want and need insightful programming.

There are many important reasons for community media to program Spanish-language materials. My hope is that listeners to public radio and viewers of public television take that leap to see how valuable these issues are to the future of public discourse.

Media Organizing Lab: Corrections

tea-glass-cupOver the last few days, I have written about leadership development for community media. Community media’s managers, organizers and leaders often come through the ranks and have to make the same mistakes over and over again. I am writing this series from my experience, in hopes of helping new managers, organizers and leaders in community media not to make the same mistakes. Anything you may have previously learned about managing goes out the window in community media. It is a challenging place to work and organize people. A few best practices can get you in the right direction.

Yesterday, I talked about coaching. Part of that process is correction. Addressing issues is not about accusing or attacking, but offering suggestions and input to make things more inclusive. Always keep the goal of making the community media outlet better as the primary objective.

Corrections are never a comfortable situation. These experiences can be stressful for rank-and-file volunteers as well as you. Do what you can to make people comfortable with a discussion first. Offer something to drink and help people relax. I keep peppermints in my office, and everyone loves having one before we start.

A goal for a community media leader is to think in a situation and make others think. Avoid making a situation worse by getting into disputes about events, actions, intent, etc. Pushing people to think rather than reacting to everything said is your focus. The best-case situation is that all corrections be objective, accurate and factual. Concentrate a correction on what is creating most problems for your particular media.

In community radio, as in life, I have found many people assume issues are not their problem or their fault. It is even harder to get volunteers to step up to the plate and take responsibility for addressing problems. Thus community media managers and leaders must find ways to offer correction in an appropriate way. When volunteers shift the blame, refocus the conversation and ask what they will do differently to make corrective behavior a reality.

Finally, make sure to take notes, keep files in order and document discussions in writing, via email or memorandum. In the event of a challenge or a lawsuit, these notes will be helpful. Speaking from a Pacifica standpoint, I will be the first to tell you, yes, legal action can result from what happens in a community media space, so be aware.

This is part of a five-part series on developing new leadership for community media and the skills it takes to be a community media organizer, leader and manager. Check the media organizing tag for more on this topic.