My Lips are Sealed

Reporters conduct interviews. They are the bread and butter of the trade.

Unlike the structured job interview, many news interviews involve dealing with taciturn or hostile people. Some interviews must be conducted on the fly, in the few moments you have before the interviewee rushes off. Even scheduled sit-down interviews can be troublesome; not everyone is forthcoming or knows how to articulate effectively.

Reporters have to learn to navigate all these circumstances and more if they're going to get the story.

We have been hosting mock interviews in class over the last few weeks to get the students talking about common problems they might encounter. Professor Karyn Smith served as the interviewee first. Editor-in-Chief Dave Weidenfeller went second.

Then it was my turn to sit in the hot seat.

Smith asked me ahead of time to be as reticent as I could, and I took that challenge to heart. I began by giving the students as vague a premise for the interview as I could.

“I was a student here at HCC. Then I transferred to UNH. Now I'm back here helping out in this class. Go wherever you want with that.”

The students tried hard to give me worthwhile questions. I shot most of them down.

One student asked why I thought it was better to go to HCC and transfer, rather than going straight to a four-year school.

“I don't know,” I said. “I haven't had the other experience.”

Another student asked what I liked most about journalism. On that question, I gave a little ground.

“The thing I like most is being able to talk to all different kinds of people and learn about them,” I said.

“But why journalism in particular?” he replied. “You could have been a historian and done the same thing.”

“That's true,” I answered, “and I might like that just as much. I can't say. This is what I enjoy.”

At one point, a student asked me if I had always wanted to be a journalist.

No, I answered.

At that point, Smith chimed in, explaining that this was the perfect opportunity for a follow-up question. “You've just discovered something about him,” she said.

Although the students were able to extract some information from me, no one was able to get a clear story before we ran out of time. I felt I had done my job as someone with nothing to say.

One thing I did notice: most of the questions focused on my analysis of the journalism profession and my experiences reporting. That was heartening. It seemed the students really wanted to know more about what it was like to be a journalist.

That, at least, means they're interested.