ABSTRACT
The desire for speed and need to cut to the chase—to just get an answer and move on—has limited journalists' engagement with conversation and it is reflected in the biggest challenge with interviews. Yes, interviewing is intended to obtain information—for without that information journalists simply have no material with which to write. That is the mechanism of an interview—questions and answers. But interviewing is more a craft than a practice. It is the interviewer who wields the brush, asking the right questions, using the right questioning techniques, guiding with a gentle hand to extracting scene after scene. Interviewing skill is like a muscle. The more journalists flex and work it, the better and stronger it will get, until they find themself interviewing people on the bus, at a party, in the doctor's office, and not even realizing it. "Interviewing people and talking to them is all about making a connection.
