How easy are interviews to write?

Some people think that writing interview articles is easier than other types since you are relying on someone else's words and just transcribing them. I strongly disagree.

In the first place, the interviewer must identify a relevant expert, contact him and set up an interview in time to make sure the topic is still newsworthy or timely. Some of the experts are getting calls from many media sources for interviews and they often have work schedules that permit only a small window of available time.

Secondly, preparation for an interview is at least equal to the research for any article. The interviewer must research the topic of the interview, the expert's previous statements and writings pertaining to the interview topic, and research some opposing views and factual information about the topic in order to have an intelligent discussion with the interviewee.

Questions should be prepared in advance, but the interviewer should be willing and even eager to go off the beaten path if the person being interviewed mentions or hints at something that seems interesting.

You are more likley to get in-depth and candid dialogue from the interviewee if you are engaged in a real conversation rather than running through a list of predetermined questions. The more in-depth your advanced research is, the better-equipped you will be to convey a genuine interest in the topic, recognize intriguing opportunities as they develop within the interview, and draw the interviewee out if she doesn't initially provide enough detail.

Finally, once you have the interview, the editing process can be quite time-consuming as well. I'll often talk with a subject for 30-45 minutes. During that time, there are pages and pages of directly transcribed notes. To make that ready for publication, I need to very carefully edit each response in such a way as to accurately capture the tone,context, and main content of the reply. It is important to represent the interviewee and their statements accurately while trimming them down to the bare essentials.

Trimming too much, however, can lead to the danger of stripping out the emotional content of the interview. The article should give the reader all the passion the interviewee feels about the topic and a glimpse of their personality without getting sidetracked.

All in all, I spend far more time on interview articles than I do on anything else I write of similar length. They also tend to be the articles in which I learn the most and I hope that learning passes through to the reader as well.