A WIRED journalist pinged me for some comments on Michael Arrington and his A-list blogger status. I told the journalist to send me the questions by email and he refused. He said Dave Winer did the same thing.
Journalists have been burning subjects for so long with paraphrased quotes, half quotes, and misquotes that I think a lot of folks (especially ones who don't need the press) are taking an email only interview policy. (Mark Cuban did this long ago),
Here is the email I sent back to the journalist on my blackberry (I wonder what Chris Anderson if WIRED thinks of this issue since he is pushing the radical transparency thing).
----------------------------
I'm an email guy like dave winer.. And I own my words as well, and often print them on my blog (after stories come out).
A wired writer who won't do an email interview--thats ironic!
Frankly, you need to adapt. Journalists have misquoted people for so long--and quoted them out of context that many people like to have their words on record.
I don't want someone taking half a sentence or paraphrasing me... Just too much risk.
Besides I have 10,000 people come to my blog every day--i don't need wired to talk to the tech industry.
Also, this is exactly how I would have this to you on the phone... You may not get the exact tone of my voice--but you get my overall tone. :)
What's really disturbing is that you would let two of the folks who know mike best walk away from the interview because you don't like email--horrible for the reader. Also, your stance confirms for folks like me (and maybe dave) that doing email only is safer.
Feel free to print this.... I will probably make a blog post from it myself. There is no off the record and there never was. :
WIRED journo won't do email interviews--ironic.
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Reader Comments
(Page 1 of 2)2. Go get 'em, Jason ;-)
Posted at 8:13AM on Apr 24th 2007 by Michael Bailey
3. Hey Jason,
What if you agreed to a phone interview under the condition that you can record the interview and post the recording and transcript after the fact?
(I'm loving http://castingwords.com for transcriptions these days.)
Jared
Posted at 9:03AM on Apr 24th 2007 by Jared Spool
5. I'm an online guy at a paper and try to encourage reporters to post mp3s of the interview online with the story if possible. We get the subject's permission first and make sure the audio is clear.
The addition helps to clear up context and expression questions people have on quotes, as well as promote transparancy.
The same goes for encouraging reporters to post links or pdfs of all of the public documents and records they used in compiling a story.
Posted at 10:28AM on Apr 24th 2007 by Andrew
6. Joe Clark: that's funny, we've done a great series of interviews via email on Download Squad and TUAW (check out David Chartier's excellent Leopard analysis with Wil Shipley and Brent Simmons), those seem to have done pretty well considering the "limited" nature of the written word...
Blanket statements are rarely applicable to creative human endeavors. Yes, I just made a blanket statement regarding creative human endeavors.
But I think it says a lot when WIRED doesn't wanna do email. Definitely ironic. Just like how Second Life hires very few virtual employees (just some programmers overseas so they keep costs down). In fact, we still find most companies don't understand the virtual office... What's with that?
Posted at 10:46AM on Apr 24th 2007 by Victor Agreda Jr
7. Email interviews are usually very easy to spot. It's not about WIRED or whatever publication it is requesting it. It's about the answers you receive when conducting an interview, it's about instant follow-up questions, it's about real, more in-depth answers. Luckily, most I interview still prefer phone or in-person. If you're concerned about being misquoted or taken out of context, post the audio of it yourself. Why is email any more "tech" than an mp3?
9. What about IM? It preserves the spontaneity that the reporter wants, allows for easy follow up questions and discourages rehearsed/overly edited responses. (If interviewee "types" out a four paragraph answer in 3 seconds, you know it's canned.)
At the same time, IM provides a transcript that can be published to prevent (or call out) misquoting.
You miss out on intonation, but that's highly subjective anyway.
Posted at 2:13PM on Apr 24th 2007 by Rocky Agrawal
10. A newspaper reporter once asked me three questions and I gave him three short answers.
He then took MY WORDS and assembled a paragraph in a new context that conveyed a completely different meaning.
Gabe Pressman of NBC News in NYC once asked me the same question three times three different ways on camera, I just stopped talking and stared right into his eyes.
11. If it's done via email, it's not an interview, but a Q&A. A real interview preserves the conversation aspect; it gives you more of the subject's personality and more honest answers.
Posted at 3:10PM on Apr 24th 2007 by Tim Dierkes
12. Great response, Jason. I totally understand your stance and if you're ever up for an email interview with the ContextWeb advertising blog - let me know. We'd welcome the opportunity.
Posted at 3:22PM on Apr 24th 2007 by John Ebbert
13. very interesting -- i work at a business magazine and most of the time it's easier for my sources to talk to me on the phone, simply because they don't have to write out answers. but certainly if a source prefers to correspond by email i don't mind. while i can understand the aversion to being misquoted (nobody wants that!) some other posters have a point about a lot being missed in the back-and-forth, the conversational aspect is totally killed in an email and it's so much harder to go in-depth. but an IM interview could be the solution here (as, again, someone else already pointed out) -- best of both worlds? still i find it odd this reporter didn't want to hear from you via email at all -- a quote via email still beats no comment at all, i'd think.
intonation is overrated and subjective anyway, if you're not sure what someone means online, you do your job as a journalist and ask for clarification! :P
Posted at 3:32PM on Apr 24th 2007 by photini
14. I've conducted interviews via email, IM, and face to face. I'm inclined to agree with the comment that a pure email approach is more like a Q&A not a genuine coversational interview, where follow up questions are important. Having said that, I've used email to do follow up questions too. I think IM is a great compromise as you can get a real conversation going as fast as both parties can type. The biggest downside of phone / skype is the need to transcribe -- which can take hours.
One thing I will say, on my blog I always declare that the conversation was via IM or email or whatever medium.
As for the Wired journo, they obviously had there reasons, but I think getting a quote by somebody who knows Mike well, would have justified making an exception.
15. Frankly, you're both as arrogant as each other. As pointed out here, there's pros and cons to both points of view. Get a life.
Posted at 3:49PM on Apr 24th 2007 by Paul
16. An email interview is the only way to go, unless of course it's a video or audio segment that requires voice. For written pieces, the continuity and flow of the conversation will be provided by the writer. Besides, they are going to just take portions of the responses anyway.
A commenter here suggested that email interviews are easy to spot. That might be true if the reporter just prints the electronic communication in its entirety without adding connecting fodder to the various points; or if she doesn't use transitional language well in the piece.
Finally, it is very possible to conduct a conversational email interview by conducting it one question at a time in a back and forth electronic conversation. Poor email interviewers will send all of their questions at once for completion, rather than reading the response to one question and then forming the next question with the previous response in mind.
That's my two cents anyway.
All the best
Tom
P.S. What's wrong with the interviewee having some time to give thought to their responses? It will ensure clarity for the reader.
Posted at 3:50PM on Apr 24th 2007 by Tom O'Leary
17. I'm a long-time tech journalist, and I am somewhere in the middle on this one. I generally prefer phone interviews for anything more than a simple yes or no, for a number of reasons:
- Many times in email interviews you end up dealing with a PR person who sanitizes and reworks the answers. I've done email interviews where all I got back was copy lifted straight from a press release, which was a waste of their and my time; I wanted to get some personality, not press release verbiage. That's not generally a problem with you (;-), but it can be with others.
- Lots of people have said that they would get their answers back to me, but never did. Email is easier to ignore than a phone call, especially if the person is busy or is trying to avoid answering a question.
- Some people write emails in shorthand that doesn't come across well in an article for a non-technical audience. You then have to clarify the quote and the context, which takes even more time. To be fair, this isn't usually the case with people like yourself who work with the web and know how to write with personality. But it is a problem with engineers and technical people who don't; they use buzz words and jargon without thinking about it.
- As someone above mentioned, a phone or face to face conversation gives more potential for getting the conversational tone of a piece. Email interviews tend to come across as impersonal.
- It's a pain to do follow up questions. If I have you on the phone, I can say "so what do you mean by the comment that Arrington is a ... How much of a ... is he?" If I do that by email, it takes longer and stands more of a chance of being ignored.
So, I think there are some good reasons why a writer might not always want to do an interview by email. Not getting at you, Jason, just pointing out the reasons why a writer might want to do a phone piece rather than an email.
Posted at 4:02PM on Apr 24th 2007 by Richard Baguley
18. How is it any harder for them to snip pieces out of your emails to portray things in the light they want to? I agree that emailed responses are over edited and perfected. Sterile. Rehearsed. But then again, no one asks me for interviews each day. If I had to live through getting constantly burned I might feel the same way.
Posted at 4:03PM on Apr 24th 2007 by Chris Haaker
19. There are at least two major problems with an email interview -- the lack of follow-up questions, and uncertainty that you're actually getting answers directly from your subject and not a third party.
Sure, you can try to email back and forth until you're satisfied you have answers to your questions. But to be honest, I often go into interviews with just 3 or 4 basic questions I want to ask. The rest of my interview will be determined by the answers, which can lead to dozens of other interesting questions.
Of course, I have a bigger problem in that I work in radio news, so there's nothing more frustrating for me than someone who wants to give a written statement or response in lieu of an interview. Sure, I can read it on the air, but it always sounds like the subject has something to hide. I'll take a good telephone or face to face interview every time.
That's not to say that email interviews don't have their place. As Victor mentioned, we use them all the time on Download Squad. But they're good for getting basic information where the whole dialog is meant for online publication.
If you're writing a profile of Mike Arrington or anybody else, and you're looking to other bloggers to provide some background to the profile, submitting your questions in writing for a prepared response seems a little silly. For all the journalist knows, you sent those questions to Mike and had him compose the answers himself before you sent them back.
Posted at 4:12PM on Apr 24th 2007 by Brad Linder
20. There's no transparency in an email interview. They're rehearsed and unauthentic.
I'm a PR guy, and I'd way rather have the person do a real interview.
Posted at 4:26PM on Apr 24th 2007 by Russell Page
1. I always request email interviews. Four years ago I was misquoted and made out as an airhead because of a vapid reporters spin on the story. As you mentioned, emails provide an archive of what was really said, old school reporters need to embrace email.
Posted at 8:07AM on Apr 24th 2007 by Kitta