ban e-mail "interviews"

but back to my other point: am i crazy for thinking its crazy that journalism does not have a principled standard disclosing the medium that something being presented as an interview was conducted via?

no, that does seem odd.

even the awkward/bad interviews i've experienced had decent material in them!

i really don't think that journalism should be reduced to fucking email interviews
it's been reduced enough already ffs

xp
it depends...

when you hear an interview on NPR that is not done over the phone, they ALWAYS tell you if the interviewee is present in the same studio or sitting in a different studio in a different part of the world. why doesn't print journalism do this?

i really don't think that journalism should be reduced to fucking email interviews
it's been reduced enough already ffs

ive been "interviewed" more than once by just being emailed a questionnaire to fill out, no back and forth, no follow-up. its a bummer! nb: these were for minor blogs/publications, but ones that sell ads etc

interviewer & interviewee should be making love or else not genuine

xps
i mean it depends on the publication, usually...
sometimes it's implied in the writing of the piece itself, of course, but if that's not clear, something added like "on a press day", "in conversation with", etc. With an email interview, it's tough, because few publications want to declare that necessarily - though online publications are often more okay with it. If it's for a short piece, not a big deal, i figure. but for a longer piece, especially if it's a profile (and that's a case where i'm just like, get on the freakin phone already!), i think it needs to be declared. of course, if you have a conversation on the phone/in person, and then follow up with email clarification, then you don't have to declare the email medium (unless the email answers are massive and/or different than phone answers)

print journalists are craftier than radio journalists
xp

there is obv great charm in a barely edited live interview & if anywhere that's where the art of the interviewer comes in in a major way, getting the interviewee to open up, loosen their lips, etc. also i agree it is dishonest & lame not to mention it if it's an email. but i also like reading ppl express themselves through thought-out text a lot, and i think that it's valuable and i disagree that the results are bad or stilted or w/e, or that a journalist is lazy for doing it that way

In an era where you've got Skype video interviews and e-mail cut and paste and any number of things in between, ultimately I see it all as an expansion of the tools of the trade, and therefore the writer's palette (as it were). Right now I'm engaged in what's turning into a potentially pretty fascinating project involving another, long deceased area figure and what I thought would be a few individual conversations either online somehow or maybe via e-mail is turning into a big get-together involving at least eight people and, it seems, a film crew. Ultimately, really, whatever works.

i like to know if the person being interviewed is eating truffle-oil french fries or not

in email it's just so easy for people to get away with not really explaining themselves/their work! like, you're not there to say "could you explain that a bit more?" and then you actually get the real, interesting answer!

you're not there to say "could you explain that a bit more?"

Depends on whether or not you follow up on that, though. Referring to my initial examples above -- didn't have space for that in the short local piece as mentioned, it was essentially a one-shot. But the Ilyas Ahmed interview had a lot of back and forth that grew out of his initial answers, pursuing observations in more detail, etc.

i hate transcribing so much

i also hate talking on the phone

ultimately I see it all as an expansion of the tools of the trade, and therefore the writer's palette (as it were).

right i feel this, and despite my baiting thread title, i mostly agree. my bigger issue is that its not common practice to disclose it the way NPR tells me if terry gross is face to face w/ someone or just hearing them in her headphones.

in email it's just so easy for people to get away with not really explaining themselves/their work! like, you're not there to say "could you explain that a bit more?" and then you actually get the real, interesting answer!

TOTALLY this gets back to my fist point/frustration as a reader. But I feel like the inverse is true as well, that an interviewee can have time to carefully select their words and i end up getting a well-edited artist statement not an "interview".

everyone hates transcribing

my fist point

I can see this.

haha

the way NPR tells me if terry gross is face to face w/ someone or just hearing them in her headphones

Terry Gross is from what I can tell mostly listening to elfin ghosts in her skull.

Ned i love that we've spent more time on this thread together that any other recent thread considering: http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?showall=true&bookmarkedmessageid=107&boardid=63&threadid=703

i see ned's point - and it really depends on who you're interviewing and what it's for - like, if it's for a big project or a book, then obv you're going to have some email correspondence. and certainly if the person in question has passed away, you're going to go on a search for other sources. all of which would be declared rather than be passed off as direct interviews though.
i'm all for more tools of the trade, for sure, but to write an original article for publication, you really want to have original conversations with the subjects of that article. there's an excitement and surprise in conversations that isn't found in most email 'interviews', and i think that translates into the final article.

xpost -- Remember the past. (And the still angry Manics fans, at least I assume they're still angry.)

i'm also not talking primarily about music journalism though, which is it's own special hell

xpost:
getting a notification from YouTube that a new comment has been posted on that video never fails to make my day slightly better

Allegedly there's a couple of Dylan fans in Austin who are still pissed off over some of my thoughts as well. C'est la vie.

i'm also not talking primarily about music journalism though, which is it's own special hell

I'm now perversely comforted by all the PR announcements I receive daily. The interchangeability is almost lulling.

music pr is the most painful pr

NPR tells me if terry gross is face to face w/ someone or just hearing them in her headphones.

― gr8080, Wednesday, January 19, 2011 12:19 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

factoid: terry gross is never face to face w/her subjects, if theyre in the same building theyre in another studio, it her thing iirc

"With their stunning new album the so-and-so's reinvent their cultlike status into a broader acceptance of their inverting of past standards and futuristic beat science of riffs."

anyway, i say all this as someone who was outright terrified of doing interviews when i was 19 - and the option of email then didn't really exist (people were still getting used to it, lol), so i had to put on a brave face and talk to people. fake it til you make it. the truth is: most real interviews are exciting and interesting for all involved! who knew

Eh I'd put mine at about 1/3 exciting etc., 1/3 neutral, 1/3 'you are my twentieth interviewer today and I already hate you' 'uh...so tell me what your new album is like'

re: "awkwardness" in phone interviews - this is called doing your job

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Tuesday, January 18, 2011 10:58 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

make the conversation happen

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Tuesday, January 18, 2011 10:58 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

um, i dont know what contenderizer meant about social anxiety, because thats not really my issue with phone interviews, its more about dealing w/ people who are sticking to scripts as is ... this happens a bunch in i imagine all forms of journalism? in person, there's something to talk about -- grady was joking, but, like, truffle fries! for real! when i interviewed gorilla zoe dude ate like 3 sandwiches or something iirc & that detail went into the interview, since he was straying from the "just gotta keep hustling" script not at all (i did get him to talk about his first tapes but that was about as interesting as it got)

phone makes it way way way harder to pick at those kinds of details. i dunno, maybe i also just hate talking on the phone like max. it doesnt feel any more 'unnatural' to me than email at some level -- in a different way, sure, but its still a really disconnected 'dialogue' imo

i guess email doesnt really move away from a script either if thats the issue, but my point was more about the actual details of your interaction with them -- the way they move / what they do / their tics etc -- can make it into the work. that stuff is all lost over the phone anyway

yeah but then its lost even more via email isnt it?

i dont know what contenderizer meant about social anxiety, because thats not really my issue with phone interviews

was mostly a joke

you can hear someone eating a sandwich over the phone

in email it wouldnt even come up

"so what are you doing right now"

"sitting in front of my computer"

yeah i just mean that compared w/ the gulf between in-person interaction, where you get to *know* the person, is a much bigger one, so phone or email it feels like you lose some / either way, just in slightly different ways

um, another thing is that until skype i had no way to record stuff over a cell phone, which is the only phone line i have

so there were practical issues

i mean i still have tapes from when i did phone interviews back when i was 19 & record to a land line.

maybe i just feel like the phone interview is such a halfway pt between 'emailed correspondence' & 'in person discussion' that it feels like a compromise of both or something idk ive been sorta thinking this through as i go along tbh

in email interviews you can *flounce off* without actually, physically flouncing off

Pervert.

in case it wasnt clear i agree w/ grady that the medium of the interview should be revealed yes

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: Journalists have a descipable reputation and folks realize this and try to limit communication to the most discretionary form possible.

despicable!

Sufferin succotash.

fwiw if i had to choose someone to interview/write a profile on me/ someone I represented based on this thread I'd pick rrrobyn

can you imagine if esquire was asking Flynt Flo$$y about his moustache instead of Scott Caan about his pompadour?

hey dont blame email interviews bcuz esquire isnt up on the turquoise jeep

yah but I can blame village voice for squandering an opportunity to fund out something interesting about them. and email interviews for not making it easy on them.

so yeah, email 'interviews' are totally the worst thing ever right?

people are SO unreliable! smh

I used to be 100% against doing email intvus (though I did at least one intvu by fax in the late 90s). But circumstances have necessitated a few times and I've had a few great experiences and a couple of annoying ones.
Last year I had an email exchange from Hawaii with a filmmaker who was in Berlin. I had enough lead time and he was generous enough with his time that I just kept sending follow up questions & he kept replying right up until I finished the article.
But I much prefer phoners--90% of my "journalism" has been 600-wd profiles of touring musicians previewing upcoming shows, so the physical possibility of an in-person interview is remote--because It feels like I then own the interview. As much as skipping transcription saves agony, waiting on an email response if unknowable usefulness is 1000 times worse. Or if you have to suddenly change tack. Many times the questions I've thought would be the key to getting good quotes produced nothing and then I've been able to just talk through or get the subject to talk it through and find something unexpected.
And over the phone, no one can see me roll my eyes. I have a wide range of rhetorical tools at hand via telephone, my clumsy social awkwardness becomes a Columbo-esque asset. In person, I'm just a self-conscious dork.

I think e-mail interviews are really unprofessional. I quit my last job because I had an E-MAIL argument with an unprofessional e-mail interviewer. (She could not SPELL and was evasive in her questions). The interviewer actually called my boss to complain about my annoyed response to the e-mailer's unprofessional conduct.

So like my boss had too many questions about "what I said" in my e-mail and I said screw it, they were unprofessional and I'm sick of this place anyway. I said, "I'm doing you a favor by leaving if you take her side".

transcribing and recording phone interviews is a lot harder than an email interview, but you know what, that's your job y'all. email inties are significantly worse imho.

^^

The tone and the meanderings of a conversational interview will naturally be different than an email interview. A conversation allows more of the interviewee's personality to come across, especially if they have a quick wit.

But I can see where an email interview could be a stronger, better interview under certain circumstances. Most definitely email could shine where there is a lot of substance and nuance, and both parties are gifted writers and are giving the exchange their full attention.

there are basically two scenarios that happen in every e-mail interview -- either the interviewee is a terrible typist or just not very good at expressing themselves in text form, and the whole thing is a mess, or they type out such long, articulate, considered answers that the interviewer is rendered irrelevent and you realize the piece should just be redone as an essay by the subject.

In my experience, e-mail interviews are fine as a form - like when you give the same interview to everyone who applies. But when it comes across as a personal haphazard and (sometimes) poorly spelled e-mail, it's a bad idea, it says you either don't care or don't have time to find the best candidate.

I thought the purpose of an e-mail interview was to just get the basic information about an applicant...idiosyncratic communications aren't always clearly understood by the recipient.

It would appear that some of the people in this thread are talking about journalistic interviews and others are talking about job interviews. This situation has the potential for confusion.

every time i've skimmed to thread to see if anyone talked about anything besides journalism i didn't see anything that really pertained to job interviews

email interviews seem to be shit for v similar reasons whether regarding journalism or jobs

Yeah this thread is about like, interviewing bands and such, right? not going for jobs (who would do that by email!??!?!?)

Nah i like em

Often I've found that non-native English speakers much prefer them. These days I will always confer directly with an editor if an interview subject says they prefer that.