Interviews

Melissa Metzger called from London to interview Jon Donley about his experience dealing with citizen journalism during Katrina and beyond at the Times Picayune website. In the raw transcript Donley shares a lot of wisdom about crowdsourcing. It's an important interview because, unlike many who are speculating, Donley has been in the trenches with the crowds. He also does some mythbusting about certain journalistic skills. Check this out:

"....Sometimes the Times Picayune reporter and the blogger are at the same meeting and holding them up side by side generally the blogger tells a better story. Because he has more background on the situation and—if they are talking about drainage for example—he can back fill with details about the flooded yard and roads and what’s happened since they cleared that big field for a housing development. He’s got all that stuff in this memory. That’s his life. But to me the important thing is how you label it just like everything else. We don’t expect editorials to be totally objective. We hope someone at some point has really rationally considered both sides but we label it very clearly as editorial for exactly this reason. We are not putting a stamp on this saying, “This is true.” We are saying, “This is how people feel.” So in all of our user-submitted stuff, we make very clear to say, “These are our users. This is their stuff.” You take it for what it is. There is an active philosophy out there"

Click for more

The other day we asked you whether there were common questions we should ask in each interview.

We compiled your suggestions and came up with four we'd like you to incorporate into your interview. (If you've already done your interview - don't worry about it.) They don't need to be asked in any particular order; they should be mixed in with your questions.

Hopefully you've heard from the person you're supposed to interview by now. If you haven't please let me or your editor know ASAP.

The questions:

1. What's really new about crowdsourcing? And where is it going next?

(We're asking this question because we want people to talk about the future. As well, this will keep our Assignment Zero project relevant for some time. Think about it: we'll have the world's foremost thinkers hypothesizing on the future - and it'll be accessible in one place.)

2. Is there money to be made with crowdsourcing? If so, why will some people work for free so that others can profit?

(This question speaks to the ethics of crowdsourcing and addresses some of the lingering criticisms floating out there.)

3. Do you really think there's wisdom in crowds? If so, what's the clearest example you know of?

(Here we'd like hear what projects they're impressed by.)

4. What surprised you the most with your project?

(Here we're hoping they'll tell us an unique story from their experience.)

Many journalists record their phone interviews to make transcribing easier. I bought a device that splits my analog phone line into two so one end goes into my tape recorder but we don't expect you to have to buy any special equipment for Assignment Zero.

Skype offers a few ways to record interviews for free. I haven't personally tried any of these but if you want to give it a shot,
you can try this suggestion from Skypetips or this other one from Pretty May, a software company.

Does anyone out there have any other suggestions? Let me know and I'll share it with the group.

I've been receiving many inquiries from people wondering whether e-mail interviews are OK.

Yes.....BUT there are a few caveats.

You should try as much as possible to make it a conversation.

That means don't send 10 questions and then sit back and wait for 10 answers.

Ask 2-3 questions. Get answers. Review those answers, and then ask a few more. Ideally, you'd want this back-and-forth to continue 3 to 5 times (or sometimes more).

You should let your subject know about the process from the get-go.

Hope that helps!

Here are a few resources for people preparing for interviews.

NewsU online course
http://www.newsu.org/courses/course_detail.aspx?id=nu_interview04
By Chip Scanlan and the Poynter Institute; both have a very good reputation.
Takes one to two hours.
Free for registrants.

Tip sheets from the Committee of Concerned Journalists
http://www.concernedjournalists.org/tools/filter/30

More tips from Poynter
http://poynter.org/search/results_article.asp?txt_searchText=interviewin...