The Art of the Interview: Techniques and Famous Examples

The Art of the Interview: Techniques and Famous Examples

Introduction: What an Interview Is

An interview is a structured conversation with a purpose. It is not merely question and answer — it is the deliberate creation of conditions in which a person reveals themselves or their views more fully than they might do in ordinary speech. The best interviews achieve this through preparation, listening, and the willingness to ask the question that the subject would prefer not to answer.

For the person being interviewed, an interview is an opportunity to control — or fail to control — how they are understood. For the interviewer, it is a test of preparation, curiosity, and patience. For the reader or viewer, it is a window into a mind or a life that would otherwise remain opaque.

Part One: Types of Interviews

JOURNALISTIC INTERVIEWS: Aimed at extracting news, opinion, or accountability from public figures. The journalistic interviewer is an adversarial proxy — they ask the questions the public would want to ask if they had access. The best journalistic interviews combine thorough preparation with the ability to listen and follow up, rather than simply working through a pre-prepared list.

PROFILE INTERVIEWS: Aimed at revealing character rather than extracting news. The profile interviewer wants to understand who this person is — how they think, what formed them, what they believe. Questions are more open, the subject is allowed to speak at length, and the interviewer looks for unexpected moments of self-revelation.

RESEARCH INTERVIEWS: Used in academic and professional contexts to gather systematic information. Questions are structured and consistent, and the aim is to produce comparable data rather than individual self-expression.

EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEWS: A mutual evaluation in which both parties assess fit. The subject must demonstrate competence and compatibility while evaluating whether the role serves their interests.

Part Two: A Famous Interview — Malala Yousafzai in Conversation

The following exchange is adapted from Malala's interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show (2013), shortly after her Nobel Peace Prize was announced:

STEWART: "You're sitting here, you survived an assassination attempt, and you're talking to me. What do you want me to know about you that the cameras can't capture?"

MALALA: "I think people are sometimes surprised that I'm not angry. They expect someone who was shot to be defined by the shooting. But I was fighting for something before the shooting, and I'm fighting for the same thing after it. The Taliban thought they would stop me. They made me a symbol instead. I would rather be a student."

[Stewart pauses, visibly moved.]

STEWART: "That's one of the most remarkable things I've ever heard."

Analysis: What makes this exchange effective:

1. The question is unexpected — "what the cameras can't capture" invites a different kind of answer than "how are you feeling."
2. Malala's answer refuses the expected frame (tragedy, anger, victimhood) and replaces it with her own (continuity of purpose, ironic consequence).
3. Stewart's pause and brief acknowledgment is the right move — he does not follow up, which would break the weight of the moment.

Part Three: A Famous Interview — Nelson Mandela on Forgiveness

Excerpted from Richard Stengel's interviews for Long Walk to Freedom (1993–1994):

STENGEL: "When you walked out of prison, did you feel hatred toward your jailers?"

MANDELA: "Not at that moment, and not since. And I want to explain why this is not weakness. When I was in that cell, I understood that the man with the key could imprison my body but he could not imprison my mind unless I let him. Hatred would have continued my imprisonment, not ended it. So I made a choice. I chose to be free."

STENGEL: "But wasn't it more complicated than that? Weren't there moments of anger?"

MANDELA: "Of course. I am a human being. But I distinguished between the moment of anger and the decision that follows from it. Anger is not a decision. What I decided — what we all decided — was that the future of our country mattered more than the injury of the past."

Analysis: What makes this exchange effective:

1. The follow-up question ("wasn't it more complicated?") does not accept the first answer as complete — it probes for honesty.
2. Mandela's response to the follow-up is richer than his first answer: he acknowledges anger, which makes his choice of forgiveness more credible, not less.
3. The distinction between "anger as experience" and "decision that follows from anger" is a philosophical contribution that the interviewer's probe enabled.

Part Four: Techniques for Effective Interviewing

PREPARATION: Know your subject. Read everything available. Identify the questions no one has asked. Prepare follow-ups for likely evasions.

THE PAUSE: Do not fill silence. A pause after a significant answer often produces more than any follow-up question. The subject is thinking; let them.

THE FOLLOW-UP: The single most important interviewing skill. When an answer contains something interesting or evasive, follow it: "Can you say more about that?" or "You said X — what do you mean by that specifically?"

OPEN QUESTIONS: Begin with open questions that allow the subject to speak at length. Reserve closed questions (which require specific short answers) for precision.

THE UNEXPECTED QUESTION: The best interviews contain at least one question the subject did not expect. It reveals how they think when they cannot rely on prepared answers.

LISTENING: The most common interviewing failure is the interviewer who does not listen to the answer because they are thinking about the next question. The next question should come from the answer, not the list.

Part Five: The Ethics of the Interview

An interview is a relationship with power dynamics. The interviewer has publication power; the subject has information. Both can misuse what they hold.

For the interviewer: accuracy, context, and fair representation are ethical obligations. Quoting a subject accurately but stripping the context that gave the quote its meaning is a form of dishonesty.

For the subject: an interview is a voluntary act. The decision to speak is a decision to take responsibility for what is said. "Off the record" requires explicit agreement from both parties; assuming it is dangerous.

For the reader: all interviews are mediations — the editor decides what to include, the journalist decides what to ask, the subject decides what to reveal. No interview is a transparent window into reality; every interview is a construction.