MDIA5001 Chap.4 Interviewing: preparation, conduct and consent
Interviewing: preparation, conduct and consent
The working definition this week borrows is that an interview is a conversation with a purpose, and almost everything that follows is an argument about the purpose half. Five types are named and each answers a different objective. A structured interview asks fixed questions in a fixed order and is what you use when comparability matters.
A semi structured interview sets topics and lets follow ups run, which is the default for reporting. An unstructured interview is conversational with almost nothing predetermined. An in depth interview is a long one to one exploration of somebody's experience. A vox pop is a short exchange gathering opinion from people in the street.
The selection rule the lecture gives is to match the type to the objective, not to your comfort. Preparation has four moves: define the objective and scope, build background knowledge on the topic, research the person, and review what they have already said elsewhere. The questions themselves follow a funnel, opening broad and narrowing to what you actually need, aligned to the story's angle.
Conduct splits into three phases, each with five moves. Opening: introduce yourself and the purpose, review confidentiality and consent, set expectations about time, build rapport, ask permission to record. During: listen actively, allow silence, transition deliberately, take strategic notes, watch the clock. Closing: summarise, ask what you missed, explain what happens next, thank them, leave contact details.
Five named mistakes sit against that, and two of them are the ones that cost marks in a transcript: leading questions, which suggest the answer you want, and loaded questions, which smuggle in an assumption the person then has to accept in order to reply at all. Ethics is not a coda here.
Informed consent, confidentiality, voluntary participation and the right to withdraw, avoiding harm, and transparency are taught as the conditions under which the conversation is legitimate, and the course supplies its own signed consent instrument for the first assignment.
What this chapter covers
- 01
An interview as a conversation with a purpose, and why the purpose decides the format
- 02
Five interview types: structured, semi structured, unstructured, in depth and vox pop
- 03
Matching the type to the objective rather than to your own comfort
- 04
Four preparation moves, including researching what the person has already said
- 05
The funnel approach: broad to specific, aligned to the story's angle
- 06
The three phases of conduct and the five moves inside each
- 07
Leading questions and loaded questions, and how to rewrite both
- 08
Five common mistakes, from thin preparation to not checking what you were told
- 09
On the record, off the record and anonymity as three distinct agreements
- 10
Informed consent, confidentiality, withdrawal, harm avoidance and transparency
- 11
The consent and permission instrument this course requires, and the cap that follows from missing it
Repairing a question set before the interview happens
- +1Question one is loaded. It contains the assumption that objections were ignored, so any answer at all concedes it, and a competent official will simply refuse the frame and you will have burned a question. Rewrite it to ask about the mechanism instead: how were resident submissions taken into account in the assessment. That version can be answered, and a weak answer to it is far more damaging than a refusal to accept a loaded premise.
- +1Question two is leading. It names the answer it wants and invites a yes, which makes any yes worthless as evidence because you supplied it. Rewrite it neutrally as a question about the timeline of the process against the statutory minimum. Note that the neutral version is also the harder question, which is the general pattern: leading questions feel aggressive and are actually soft.
- +1Question five is leading and emotionally charged at once, and it asks for a feeling rather than a fact. Regret is not reportable and will produce either a non answer or a defensive one. Replace it with a question about what, if anything, would be done differently, which is answerable, forward looking, and yields a usable quote either way.
- +1Questions three and four are sound but sit in the wrong place. Reorder into a funnel: open broad with the mechanism question, then the process timeline question, then the two factual questions about the decision timeline and the submission count, and close on what would be done differently. Broad to specific gives the person room to talk early, which is when the unexpected material arrives, and keeps the precise facts for the point where you both know what you are talking about.
Key terms
- Leading question
- A question phrased so that it suggests the answer the interviewer wants, which makes any agreement it produces worthless as evidence because the interviewer supplied it.
- Loaded question
- A question containing an embedded assumption, so that answering it at all concedes the assumption and refusing to answer looks evasive.
- Semi structured interview
- An interview whose topics are set in advance while the follow ups stay open, which is the default reporting format because it holds the agenda while leaving room for what you did not expect.
- Vox pop
- A short, quick exchange gathering opinion or reaction on one issue from members of the public, used for texture rather than for authority.
- Funnel approach
- Ordering questions from broad to specific so that the person talks freely before the precise factual questions arrive, keeping the sequence aligned with the story's angle.
- Informed consent
- Agreement given by a participant who understands the purpose of the interview, how the material will be used, and that they may decline or withdraw without consequence.
- Off the record
- An agreement, made before the information is given, that material may inform your reporting but may not be published.
Interviewing: preparation, conduct and consent FAQ
Do I really need a signed consent form, and what happens if I do not have one?
For the news article, if you take the interview pathway, yes, and the consequence is the sharpest in the course: an article submitted without a signed participant consent form for an interview you conducted is capped at a Pass, no matter how the rubric rows score. The form has to be signed before the interview, not collected afterwards, because that is what makes the consent informed.
The instrument the course supplies also covers things students forget to raise: that the material is for an academic assignment, that it may be submitted for publication, that the interviewee has seen the quotes attributed to them and confirms they are accurate, that they will be told if it is published, and that they keep a signed copy.
Build the form into your process as the thing you do before you press record, and the cap becomes impossible to trigger.
Can I interview a friend, a relative or a classmate?
Not for the news article. The brief rules out friends and relatives explicitly and asks for people who hold relevant authority in the field, giving a council spokesperson or a mayor for a local story and a department officer, statistician or subject expert for a data story as the model.
There are two interviews required if you take that pathway, and the interviewee must be attributed in full because no anonymity is permitted for this piece. The reason is not bureaucratic. Authority is what makes a quote evidence rather than colour, and a source who is close to you cannot be reported at arm's length.
Approach people the way a reporter would: a short email naming who you are, what the story is about, how long you need, and what happens to the material.
How do I handle someone who will not answer the question?
First, distinguish evasion from a bad question, because the second is far more common in student transcripts. If your question was loaded, the refusal is correct and the fix is yours. If the question was fair, the technique the course teaches is to allow the silence rather than fill it, then return to the point with a narrower version. Do not stack three questions into one, which gives the person a choice of which to answer.
Take strategic notes as you go so you can come back at the end with what you did not get, and use the closing move the course prescribes, which is to ask whether anything was missed. A non answer is also reportable: declining to say whether a report exists is itself a fact you can attribute, provided you record the question you actually asked.
Assessment move
Rehearse on someone with nothing at stake before you interview someone who does. Take any person you can reach, prepare a real objective, run twenty minutes semi structured, record it with permission, and then transcribe five minutes of it by hand.
The transcription is the part that teaches: you will hear yourself interrupting, filling silence, and asking two questions in one sentence, and hearing it once fixes it more reliably than reading about it.
Second, build a reusable preparation template with four fields, objective, background on the topic, background on the person, and what they have already said in public, and refuse to schedule an interview until all four are filled. Third, keep a personal list of your own leading questions.
Everyone has a characteristic tic, usually a phrase like wouldn't you say or don't you think, and once you know yours you can catch it in the draft. Fourth, treat the consent and permission form as step one of the process rather than paperwork at the end, because in this course it is the difference between a mark and a capped mark. Print two copies before you leave.
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