Interviewing for Radio ‘This is an invaluable guide to radio interviewing of all kinds, from the vox-pop to the full- scale discussion. I learned a lot.’ Sue Lawley, Desert Island Discs, Radio 4 ‘This is an invaluable guide. It’s impressively up to date and full of excellent tips both for novices and for old hands too.’ Sue MacGregor, Today, Radio 4 Interviewing for Radio is a thorough introduction to the techniques and skills of the radio interview. It offers advice on how to ask the right question and elicit a response and guides the reader through the use of equipment, the mechanics of recording, the studio environment, live broadcasts, presentation and pronunciation, and editing material. Interviewing for Radio critically analyses previously broadcast interviews, incorporates advice from professionals from national, local and independent radio, and explains the preparation, organisation and expertise required in order to produce a successful radio broadcast. Written by an experienced producer and instructor, Interviewing for Radio includes: • the history of the radio interview and the importance of its role today • practical exercises which introduce successful interview and technical skills • case studies and hypothetical scenarios to help you prepare for potential difficulties • a discussion of ethics, risk assessment, codes of conduct and safety issues • a glossary of radio and broadcast terms and notes on further reading and listening Jim Beaman is senior lecturer in radio journalism at The Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College, and has worked as an instructor at BBC Radio Training. His broadcasting experience includes presenting, reporting and producing for BBC radio. Media Skills SERIES EDITOR: RICHARD KEEBLE CITY UNIVERSITY, LONDON, UK SERIES A DVISERS: WYNFORD HICKS, JENNY MCKAY NAPIER UNIVERSITY, SCOTLAND The Media Skills series provides a concise and thorough introduction to a rapidly changing media landscape. Each book is written by media and journalism lecturers or experienced professionals, and is a key resource for a particular industry. Offering helpful advice and information and using practical examples from print, broadcast and digital media, as well as discussing ethical and regulatory issues, Media Skills books are essential guides for students and media professionals. Also in this series: English for Journalists, 2nd edition Wynford Hicks Writing for Journalists Wynford Hicks with Sally Adams and Harriett Gilbert Producing for the Web Jason Whittaker Find more details of current0 Media Skills books and forthcoming titles at www.producing.routledge.com Interviewing for Radio Jim Beaman London and New York First published 2000 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001. © 2000 Jim Beaman All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Beaman, Jim, 1959– Interviewing for radio / Jim Beaman. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Interviewing on radio. I. Title. PN1991.8.I57 B43 2000 791.44'028–dc21 00–025457 ISBN 0-415-22909-X (hb) ISBN 0-415-22910-3 (pb) ISBN 0-203-12991-1 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-17678-2 (Glassbook Format) Contents Preface vii 1 The birth of the radio interview 1 2 The role and purpose of the radio interview 6 3 Guidelines 19 4 Advice from the experts 43 5 Technical advice 52 6 Before the interview 64 7 At the interview 85 8 After the interview 132 9 Analysis of interviews 148 10 Information 156 Glossary 165 Index 171 Preface Experienced radio interviewers may not find much of interest or of practical use within these pages. Hopefully, they will be able to nod sagely when they come across a good bit of advice or read about experiences similar to their own. To become a good radio interviewer there is no substitute for experience, but we all have to start somewhere. Like many others, I learnt the pleasures and pitfalls of interviewing by actually doing it. In those early days working in news and programme production, I welcomed any guidance and feedback about my performance from more experienced broadcasters. The problem with experience is that you can slip into bad habits, so I think it is important to be humble enough to encourage honest feedback from those whose judgement you trust, even if you feel you can do the job blindfold. The aim of this book is to act as a form of support and a guide to good practice for the journalist who is trying to develop their skill in the art of interviewing for radio. There are no startling revelations, nor many hard-and-fast rules, but there is plenty of advice. Many of the words of wisdom contained within are based on the experiences of professional colleagues in radio, radio training and education. You will no doubt discover what works for you, and you will develop your instincts and apply your own tricks of the trade. This book is about interviewing for radio, and draws no distinction between interviewing for news and interviewing for programmes, except for particular procedures. In the same way, it draws no distinction between a journalist who interviews for news and one who interviews for programmes. All interviews broadcast are the product of journalism, be they about an issue of national importance or simply for entertainment. Anyone conducting an interview for broadcast, be they from the newsroom and considering themselves a serious journalist, or the presenter of the mid-morning show who prefers to think of themselves as an entertainer, applies the same ethical and professional considerations to their work. viii Preface Some trainee journalists are naturally anxious about meeting people and having to ask them questions. One trainee told me he was so nervous when he went to conduct his first interview that he forgot to shake hands with his interviewee. Some trainee journalists worry about the sound of their own voice, or whether they look as though they know what they are doing when the time comes to start operating their recording equipment, or whether their questions sound stupid, or whether they are asking the right questions; they worry about what the interviewee will think of them, what other journalists covering the same story will think of their performance, and how they will cope when things go wrong. They want to know how to overcome their fear of cold-calling complete strangers on the telephone, how to tell their editor that the vox-pop subject they were sent to record interviews about was a waste of time because the only replies they collected from the public were ‘who cares?’, and how to stop an interviewee from talking too much. I hope this book will help provide some of the knowledge they require to develop confidence and a positive attitude, and alleviate some of their anxieties about interviewing a complete stranger. Interviewing for radio is challenging, exciting and life-enriching, so try to enjoy it. 1 The birth of the radio interview Radio broadcasting in the UK began in 1922, but for many years the interview was an ignored resource. Newspapers and cinema newsreels used interviews as a method of eliciting news and when covering stories, but radio did not. In the early days of radio broadcasting, speech output mainly consisted of talks, speeches, commentaries and reports. News broadcasts were made up of text compiled from material provided by news agencies. They did not contain any voice reports or interview clips. So when and how did the broadcast interview make its appearance on the UK airwaves? Archive records can tell us the date and location of the first radio outside broadcast, and when an election address was first broadcast, and when the news was first read by a woman, but not who conducted the first broadcast interview on radio, what the topic under discussion was, nor who the interviewee was. If there were such things as interviews, then nobody felt that they were important enough to archive or to keep the details on record. Interviews did eventually start making their presence felt, but it was a painstaking progression that seemed to stumble into being, and involved the bringing together of the pioneering groundwork of a number of broadcasters working in different parts of the BBC. The edition of the BBC Handbook that looks back on 1931 and reports on performance and developments in radio broadcasting during that year sheds some light on how speech radio, particularly in the Talks Department, was beginning to at least allow discussion between people with a diversity of views to be heard on the air. A chapter headed ‘The important symposiums’ reveals: 2 The birth of the radio interview When the ban on controversy was lifted by the Postmaster-General, the BBC made their earliest experiments in the form of discussions and debates. The chapter goes on to describe how: The ‘dogfight’ method has advantages for straight and simple issues in which there is a clear pro and con; and conversational discussion between two or three people is useful for conveying good talk of an after-dinner kind. A few years later the mainstay of the Talks Department, the radio discussion, underwent a significant change. The impromptu unscripted debates broadcast in the early days tended to be meandering, sometimes unintelligible discussions between eminent professors with constant interruption and deviation by the participants, so the BBC decided to introduce an experienced broadcaster to join them in front of the microphone to act as an umpire, to steer the debate and to make sense of it all without actually taking part in the discussion.