Striking Gold with a Simple Question

By Jeff Bailey
October 30, 2007 05:39 PM

We’ve all done it: shown up for a big interview -- with the subject of our story, perhaps -- armed with a legal pad on which we’ve scrawled dozens of highly detailed questions, each one backed up by our exhaustive review of documents and previous interviews.

Being well prepared and thorough are certainly virtues. But I hope to convince you that for your most important interviews – with the subjects of your stories and other key players – you should ask fewer and more general questions.

The absolutely best question, in my mind, most times is simply, “What happened?”

Want big answers? Ask big questions. That approach is something I stumbled upon more than 20 years ago while covering banking for The Wall Street Journal. Badly hung-over one morning, and completely unprepared to interview a bank chief executive on his disastrous investment in a Brazilian bank, head throbbing I slumped into a chair next to the man and croaked out, “So, what happened?”

Several past interviews with this gentleman had gone poorly. He had his own points to make and seemed always to be veering away from my carefully constructed questions. I’d leave with little to show for the effort, most of my legal pad entries unanswered.

But this time, he began talking and didn’t stop for most of an hour, relating, in perfect chronological fashion – yes, a narrative -- his sad encounter with Brazilian finance. Before I could frame a damning question, he had made a complete mea culpa and had nicely explained his thinking at several points during the drama.

It occurred to me then – and I’ve since become persuaded of it – that my former interviewing style was rude. I mean, golly, the banker knew more about his bank and its faults than I ever could. Yet here I was trying to precisely direct the conversation and becoming irked with the poor guy when he didn’t cooperate. Perhaps I was trying to prove how much I already knew.

To the interview subject, I think that approach must seem like being deposed in a lawsuit, quite hostile. And we all know what any lawyer tells his client before a deposition: there are only three good answers – yes, no and I don’t remember. And none of those answers is going to do much to help a reporter build a compelling narrative, is it?

I’m not advising you to give up control of your story, or write what the subject might want to read. Far from it. I’m merely suggesting you put yourself in the position to listen to the fullest, most interesting account of events that your interview subject has to offer.

There are plenty of exceptions to my approach. Sometimes we need detailed information or to ask a very precise question. And from many people – the minor players in our story – that’s all we need. (We also want to make sure the subject of our story, particularly an unflattering one, knows quite clearly what our story is going to say about him and has a chance to respond.)

But for major interviews, I think it is rude and, more importantly, mostly unproductive to hammer away with lots of little questions. Let’s face it, be it feature (investigative or not) or news story, a narrative structure (after the lead) is almost always the easiest way for the reader to follow your tale. And who better to provide the narrative than the person who lived it?

For a glorious narrative in a business story, read Malcolm Gladwell’s 2000 New Yorker profile of Ron Popeil, the television gadget hawker.

As the years went on for me, I found sitting back and listening helped draw out a disowned and obese heiress ("She Might Have Inherited Millions," The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 25, 1991), a Mafia-linked New Jersey trash king ("Fighting City Hall: In a Tussel Over Trash," The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 28, 1994) and, more recently, the chief executive of the biggest mortgage company, Angelo Mozilo. Each was essentially given the opportunity to tell me their life story, and happily did.

Sure, the reluctant interview subject might not help with a narrative. But we won’t know that if we don’t give him a chance. And even a partial narrative from the subject, covering the more flattering elements of the story, can help us build our larger story, or, in some cases, help show that the subject’s version of events is so at odds with facts we’ve uncovered elsewhere.

Our demeanor is just as important as the questions we ask. Prosecutorial, argumentative, nit-picking are not good modes. Would you want to tell your secrets to that person?

I have heard, over the years, the term “confrontation interview.” I can’t imagine a less productive approach. On television, maybe, what’s wanted is to see the subject squirm. But for us print types, we’re after useful information for our story.

I prefer a combination that might seem odd – the most direct questions possible, delivered with good humor. I think it says this to the interview subject: we both know this topic, are under no illusions about why we’re here, but we’re civil, good-natured people and, unless a death or something else quite horrible is involved, these events aren’t the end of the world. It suggests to the subject that we possess the perspective to listen to a story, understand it and pass it along, in our own words, to others.

(Jeff Bailey is a business writer for The New York Times. Based in Chicago, he covers the airline industry.)

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