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1. Decide what the interview is for
Before you request an interview, write down in one line what the interview must produce. An information interview seeks facts the person holds: dates, numbers, processes, documents. A testimony interview seeks an account of something the person experienced or witnessed. A reaction interview seeks a response to something already established. A colour interview seeks the detail, texture and language that lets a reader see a scene.
The purpose determines almost everything else: how long you need, whether you can send questions in advance, whether recording matters more than notes, and how much of the answer you can reasonably expect to use. It also determines failure. An information interview fails if you leave without the figure; a colour interview fails if you leave with a figure and no scene.
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2. Build a question ladder, not a list
A ladder starts with questions that are easy to answer accurately and climbs toward questions that are difficult to answer at all. The first rungs establish facts you already know, which lets you check whether the person's account matches the record. The middle rungs open the material you actually need. The top rungs are the questions the person may not want to answer, and they are asked once the rest is secured.
Write more questions than you can use, then mark the three you must not leave without. Twenty prepared questions with three marked is a working ladder; twenty unranked questions is a script you will read out while missing the answer in front of you. Leave space between questions on the page, because the useful follow-up is almost always improvised from a phrase the person just used.
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3. Agree the terms before you start
Attribution levels are conventions, not statutes, and they mean slightly different things in different newsrooms. That is precisely why they must be stated in words both sides understand: whether the person can be named, whether their role can be described, whether their words can be quoted at all, and whether the information can be used to seek confirmation elsewhere. Write the agreed terms in your notes with the time.
Terms are prospective. A person cannot retrospectively place a sentence off the record after saying it, and a reporter who accepts that is not obliged to do so, though many will negotiate. What matters is that the reporter never agrees to a term they do not intend to keep. Confidentiality carries obligations after publication as well as before, which the sources and confidentiality chapter examines in detail.
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4. Open, closed and mirror questions
Open questions produce material; closed questions produce precision. Use open questions to let the person describe, then close in on the specifics: which date, how many, who signed it, where is that written down. A whole interview of open questions yields atmosphere with no verifiable content. A whole interview of closed questions yields a form that could have been an email.
The mirror question repeats the person's own phrase back as a question, which invites elaboration without introducing your framing. It is the most useful single technique for testimony, and the easiest to overuse. Avoid the compound question, which asks two things and gets an answer to the easier one, and avoid the loaded question, which puts your assumption into the person's mouth and makes the quote unusable.
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5. Silence, sequence and the difficult question
Silence is a technique, not an accident. When an answer stops short, saying nothing for three or four seconds often produces the sentence the person had decided not to say. Filling the gap with your next question tells them the subject is closed. Learning to sit still through a pause is genuinely difficult and worth practising deliberately.
Sequence matters as much as content. The hardest question goes late, once everything else is on the record, so that a refusal or a walk-out does not cost you the rest of the interview. It should still be asked plainly, once, without apology or padding, and repeated once if the answer addresses something else. Note a refusal precisely: what was asked, at what time, and what was said in reply, because a refusal is itself reportable.
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6. Recording, notes and consent to record
Ask before recording and note the answer. Recording a person who has not agreed damages trust immediately and may raise separate legal questions about privacy and personal data that vary by jurisdiction and setting. Even where recording is lawful, an interview conducted on an undisclosed recorder is difficult to defend editorially unless there is a serious public-interest justification decided above reporter level.
Take notes even when recording. Write the clock time beside each significant answer so you can find it in the audio without replaying an hour. Note non-verbal detail the microphone will not capture: the room, the interruptions, the documents on the table, who else was present. That material is often the difference between a flat quote and a scene a reader can see.
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7. Interviewing people in distress
Some interviews involve bereavement, illness, violence or the loss of a home or livelihood. Trauma-aware practice is straightforward to state and hard to do: explain what the interview is for and where it will appear, make clear that the person can stop at any point, avoid asking for a detail you do not need, and do not press for tears. The National Union of Journalists code of conduct and similar published codes set expectations about intrusion into grief that are worth reading before rather than after such an assignment.
Practical steps help. Offer a choice of place and time. Allow a supporter to be present. Read back the quotations you intend to use, which is not a loss of independence but a check on accuracy in an interview where the person may not recall exactly what they said. If the person is a child or a vulnerable adult, the question of who can consent is a separate one and should be settled with an editor before the approach.
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8. After the interview
Transcribe or index the recording the same day while you still remember which phrase mattered. Mark every sentence you intend to quote and check it against the audio word by word, including the beginning of the sentence, because quotes are most often distorted by where the reporter starts them rather than by misheard words. Note the exact timestamp beside each quote you use.
Send back figures, spellings, job descriptions and technical terms for confirmation where accuracy is at stake. That is a factual check, not an approval process, and the distinction should be stated when you ask. Keep the notes and the recording for as long as your correction and complaint window requires, stored so that a confidential source could not be identified from them.
Attribution levels in practice
| Level | What may be published | Typical use | Where it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| On the record | Name, role and exact words | Official statements, named experts, most reporting | Assumed rather than agreed, then disputed |
| Unattributable | The words, with the role described but not named | Internal accounts where naming carries consequences | The description is so specific it identifies the person |
| Background | The information, in the reporter's own words | Understanding a process before reporting it | Treated as a quotable source of denial or attack |
| Off the record | Nothing, unless separately confirmed | Guidance that points to documents or other people | Used as a shield after the sentence has been said |
Checklist before an interview
- One line stating what the interview must produce.
- Question ladder written, with the three essential questions marked.
- Attribution terms agreed in words and noted with the time.
- Recording consent asked for and the answer written down.
- Recorder tested, spare power arranged, notebook with timed margins ready.
- A plan for the difficult question and for a refusal to answer it.
Questions readers ask
Should I send my questions in advance?
For technical or statistical interviews it improves accuracy and is usually worth it. For accountability interviews it lets the answer be drafted by somebody who will not be in the room, so most reporters send the subject areas rather than the questions.
Can somebody retract a quote after the interview?
There is no general obligation to withdraw an on-the-record remark that was made on agreed terms. Many reporters will still discuss a correction where the person misspoke about a fact, which is different from disliking how the quote reads.
Is it acceptable to let a source approve the article?
No. Checking specific facts, figures and spellings is good practice; handing over editorial control is not, and the difference should be stated plainly when you ask for the check.