Intervew Techniques- Structuring

Introduction - All interviews need to start with the indrodction where the interviewer introduces who they are interviewing and the topic they are talking about. The interviewee needs to feel relaxed as the intervew starts so they will answer all the questions. In this clip, Jonathan Ross introduces Lady Gaga with a video of her and all her songs. This is good because she feels more confident and welcomed but if is bad because their is less time for the actual interview.


Development Questions - This makes the interviewee feel more relaxed about the whole interview just asking 'how are you?' will make the interviewee more realxed and feel as though they can answer the questions. Graham Norton asks about her new album and tour dates.

Confidece Buildng - Before all the questions, the interviewee needs some confidence building to structure the interview. This will make the questions easier for them to answer as they are now confident and trust the interviewer more. Here Jonathan Ross is building Adeles confidence when he talks about how she is big all over the world now.


Key Questions - The key questions are the most imporant part of the interview as it is the whole point of it and they are the aswers the interviewer wants. They are usually near the begining of the interview so the serious questions are out of the way and so the interviewer can find out what they want to know. Here Simon Cowell talks about the death of his dad.


Soundbites - These are the sections of the interview that can be taken out to advertise the whole intervew. They are normally funny, light-hearted parts of the interview. If at the end of the interview there is nothing that can be used for a soundbite then the interviewer will ask something that could be used. This is a good soundbite with Rihanna because it is funny and people would want to here the whole story.


Summery - At the end of the interview the intrviewer will ask one last question that summerises the whole interview and the whole topic of the inerview, it concludes te interview.


Windup - The windup is the very last part of the interview and is usually a light-hearted question and the interviewer thanking the interviewee. This interview ends with the red chair stories and ends the show very funnily with a lot of laughs.

Intervew Techniques- Style

Hard news is factual and a very seious form of interview. Examples of hard news are things about murders or wars. It is all very seious and would need a serious interviewer to find out everything needed. Hard news is always at the start of news programs as it can sometime be upsetting, they always end on light-hearted news. Light-hearted news is not serious at all but is still shown on the news, it is always at the end of the news so people feel happier after the hard news stories. This video shows a light-hearted interview with Victoria Beckham telling the interviewer she would like to have a baby girl. Its light-hearted because it is not a serious question and she clearly feels comfortable enough to answer.

This Video is hard news all about the economy collapse and money crisis. This is hard news because it is all very serious and is just a man talking about what has happened without needing many questions.


Combative interviews are ones where the interviewer is quite pushy, almost agressive towards the interviewee. Sometimes it gets all the answers the interviewer wants but most the time it just makes the interviewee more defensive and they wont answer what they are being asked. In this interview the interviewer is very pushy with the questions he asks when the interviewee clearly doesn't want to answer.


Entertainment interviews are usually with celebrities and focus on their lives. This interview with Katy Perry shows how the interview is very light-hearted and fun and shows how she answers all the questions.



Investigative news is a lot like hard news because it is generally about current affairs tries to get all the facts. Investigative is also either biased or unbiased and would in some cases would be covert and undercover so they get all the answers they want for the interview.

Promotional interviews are where the interviewee is trying to promote something like a film a book they have released. This interview shows Ricky and Karl promoting their DVD's.

Intervew Techniques- Question Types

Open questions are questions that have a longer answer. If the interviewer asks the interviewee an open question then the interviewee would answer with a longer answer than a closed question. When the interviewer asks open questins the interviewee has controll of where it goes and how they answer it. It also makes the interviewee's answer longer and more detailed so you find out more about them. The positives of having open questions mean you find out more than you want to know about the interviewee but the negatives are that the interviewee may change the conversation from were you wanted to go.Closed questions are questions that only need a yes or no answer. This can be quite boring in interviews yet it is hard to escape puttng them in, a good balance between open ad closed questions is always good. They are perfect for voxpop quetions or just short red carpet interviews that only need a simple yes or no. The advantage is if you want to aks a question that only requires a one word answer but the disadvantge is if you want an interesting interview you cant use closed questions.

This interview with Sarah Harding, Alan asks a mix of open and closed questions. The first question Alan asks is an open question "what's it like being an actress?" He asks her about her acting career to get her talking about it and to start the interview off with some confidence building.

In an interview a single question is a question that only contains one question. Whereas multiple questions are questions that contain more than one question. An example of a single question is: How are you? However you can find more information about the person by using a multiple question and saying: How are you and why are you feeling like this? This is so you find out much more about the person than when you ask a single qustion. However single questions are useful for finding out just one thing. Multiplequestions are always related to the topic in conversation so asking more than one will not confuse the audience. The advantage is it means the answer will be longer and more complex, but the answer may be longer than the interviewer anticipated.

Direct quesions are straight to the point and normally get the answer they were looking for. They usually start with What, Where, Why, When, Who and How. The advantage of these questions is that you will always get a straight answer but the questions may offend the interviewee. Indirect questions are questions that do not need a responce but sometimes gets one. An example of an indirect question would start of with "I wonder...." They are not as subtle but may get and answer out of the interviewee.

Suggestive questions tell the interviewee how they should answer the question and means the interviewer gets the answer they wanted. This type of question is commonly used by a news journalist because they are in contoll of the answer. The negative thing about suggestive questions is they can sometimes seem agressive towards the interviewee therefore they refuse to answer.

Communication Skills

Communication skills is a key interviewing technique.

Building rapport is very important as it is where the interviewer has to keep eye contact and look at the interviewee. It makes them feel like you are more interested in what they are saying. Listening carefully instead of thinking about the questions you are going to ask them is better because sometimes the things they say in their answers may give you the idea for a new, better question.

Active listening really helps in interviews because it makes the interviewee feel as though they are being listened to properly and they are not just wasting their time. Listening helps you understand what people are trying to say and makes it easier to learn about them. The interviewer sometimes asks a question to summarise what the interviewee has just answered.

Body language helps keep you engaged in an interview. Just by nodding your head every so often or agreeing with the interviewee it makes you appear more interested and makes the interviewee feel like they are being interesting. The interviewer should never be too close to the interiewee because they will feel as though their space is being invaded.



This video of Alan Carr on The Graham Norton Shows him building good rapport, active listening and appropiate body language. He listens to everything Alan has to say but because he knows he can joke with him he makes jokes about his book. He builds good rapport by building trust between him and Alan and by having good body language to make Alan feel as though he is listening and finding him interested. Graham has good body language because he makes the interviewees feel comfortable and relaxed. He also makes them feel like they are just talking to a friend so they can open up and talk freely. Graham Norton shows good active listening because he makes the questions and the answers flow well, he listens to the answer and creates questions form their answers.

Purpose of interviews

Interviews are used for different purposes; 


Some are for research into something. This is needed in the news when reporters need to interview people to find out what is going on, for example a witness to a shooting. It also helps to find more things out about a person or a specific thing. This video shows a man being interviewed who is a first hand witness of some of the riots. He gives long answers as it is him telling us what happened so their is no need for the reporter to ask questions. It is good because we can get all the information off someone who has seen it first hand but they can sometimes make mistakes.







Some are to help you understand something as you find out more about it, when doing interviews on documentaries it helps you understand what is going on and what is being talked about. They help understand things that are going on. This interview taken from living with Michael Jackson helps us understand him a lot more and makes the documentary on him make sense. It is good because we get an insight into his life and he tells us about all the rumours, so we understand him more. The disadvantages are that the interviewer has to be careful with the questions  he asks so he can have a good relationship with Michael Jackson so he still answers some hard questions.  





Other interviews are to inform people about a subject or a person, celebrity interviews informs readers or viewers about the celebrity and sometimes gives you an insight in their lives. Other inform interviews are ones from documentaries to inform you on all the information they are getting across to the viewers. This beyonce video lets her fans know about her pregnancy. the interviewer doesn't need to ask any questions because it is just her letting us know she is pregnant.




Interpretive interview is where the interviewee is asked to explain or comment on something. The aim of this interview is to get an opinion or reaction from the person that is being interviewed.


Some interviews are used for emotion purpose and get more viewers as they are doing an emotional interview about someone or something and it gets more intimate with the person. It is a sensitive interview and is where the interviewer has to respect and be sensitive towards the interviewee. For example on the news, when someone is being interviewed about a family member that has been murdered then they would have to be spoken to in a nice way and given time if they cant answer a certain question. This video is piers morgan talking to Cheryl Cole about her life and about her divorce. The advangage of an emotional interview is that we see 

Journalistic Context

Journalistic context means all the different interviews techniques there are.
You can have - television,  radio, online,  news, sport, feature-writers, and editorial interviews.

• Television interviews- There are many types of television interviews, the breaking news on the news programs or the hard news they have. They also have the light hearted interviews on chat shows like this morning or The Jonathan Ross Show. The interviews can be funny, light hearted and sometimes emotional.  

• Radio interviews- Can be live on air or pre recorded. It is usually with the bands or artist that have brought a new album or single out and wants to promote it. There can sometimes be serious interviews on the news bits or on the more serious stations. Interviewers still have to use body language and say the occasional 'yes' to prompt the interviewee and so they sound interessted to the listeners.

• Online- Online interviews can be written or filmed. They can appear on websites or blogs and can be serious or lighthearted. Most of them are promotional or celebrity interviews. Most television programmes have online catch up sites where they put all their interviews on. Magazines also have these so we can see the interview when we normally wouldnt. There are websites like you tube that loads of people upload interviews on. We normally are only able to hear radio interviews but now most radio shows also put their interviews online.

• News- interviews are often very serious especially when its breaking news and they go live on air. They can be interviews with witnesses, police, criminals or politicians. They are a lot more serious than radio or chat show interviews as they are to inform people on what is happening around the world and get more information on something.

• Sport- Every sports event has inteviews before and after the event, before the event people are interviewed to see how they are feeling and to sometimes predict what the outcome will be. A sport interview usually happens after the event has taken place and the sports person is the one being interviewed. For example, after a football match, some of the players will be interviewed and then the manager will be interviewed. 

• Feature-Writers- Where the interview will be mentioned on the front page, this is usually with a celebrity on the cover of a celebrity magazine. someone will then write about the thing that has featured on the front page.   

• Print- Where the interview is printed, in magazines and in newspapers. These intervews can be lighthearted,hard news depending on which magazing/newspaper it is in. A print article will have the question written followed by the answer. These interviews need to catch the readers attention so they are published in a magasine with extracts from the interview taken out and made bigger and bolder to catch the readers attention, just like when sound bites are taken from TV interviews.