Creative Interviewing: The Writer's Guide to Gathering Information by Asking Questions

"Creative Interviewing" is a standard text in journalism classes. Even if you're not a student, however, it's still worth its $60+ cover price. Metzler uses anecdotes, exercises, and statistics to teach prospective (and current!) reporters about the interviewing game. Are you clueless as to how to set up interviews? More nervous than your respondent? Unsure whether you should record interviews with a tape recorder or take notes? Metzler answers all of these questions and more. Metzler's brand of journalism is humble and at-odds with sensationalistic television "journalism," so it's a refreshing read. The 3rd edition is from 1996 and thus the chapters on the Internet and e-mail are slightly dated. Hopefully there's a 4th edition in the works!

Good interviewing skills are essential for freelance writers. Ken Metzler's book, Creative Interviewing: The Writer's Guide to Gathering Information by Asking Questions, is an excellent source for learning how to conduct an interview and improving your interviewing techniques. Did you know that most interviews happen in ten stages? Mr. Metzler explains, "Face-to-Face interviews usually, though not always, run through ten stages. Four stages occur before you even meet your respondent. The success of the six subsequent ones depends largely on how well you accomplish the first four." Do you know what the ten interview stages are? Here's the list from Creating Interviewing: 1. Defining the purpose of the interview 2. Conducting background research 3. Requesting an interview appointment 4. Planning the interview 5. Meeting your respondent: breaking the ice 6. Asking your first questions 7. Establishing an easy rapport 8. Asking the bomb 9. Recovering from the bomb 10. Concluding the interview Based on this ten stage list, Mr. Metzler details all the ins and outs to creating and conducting interviews. From his text you'll learn what makes for a constructive interview, details on accomplishing the Ten Stages, how to form and ask questions, find sources, and more. There's even a chapter on how to be the interviewee, which will hopefully be important to all of us someday. Creative Interviewing is written in clear, concise prose, with a pleasant sense of humor thrown into the mix. Mr. Metzler also provides plenty of case studies and anecdotes to help you learn by example for your own interviews. If you're serious about improving your interviewing skills you'll want to add Creating Interviewing to your writer's bookshelf.

This book shows you how to conduct just about every type of interview. It also explains concepts, helps the journalist devise a plan and more importantly provides key information on how to cope with the "difficult interview." In my opinion, "The Writer's Guide to Gathering Information by Asking Questions: Creatinve Interviewing," by Ken Metzler should be required reading for serious journalism students everywhere. "The need for interviewing skills is by no means confined to newspaper writers," according to the author. And I agree. The corporate world is always interviewing...they are always on the look for new talent. In many cases, they need to be better than simply ask, "where do you want to be in five years." Believe or not there truly are many typical errors you want to avoid when interviewing. To this end, you will find a healthy discussion on how to avoid mistakes here. Moreover, this book will help you navigate the tricky interview process. Chapters two and three are terrific. Chapter two outlines the ten stages of the interview. And chapter three covers the conversational dynamics of interviewing. This book even includes a chapter on interviewing excercises. All in all this book is a valuable tool for everyone interested in making journalism a profession. The gathering of information in journalism is primarily done by oral means. Consequently, it makes sense to seek the knowledge of a book that helps you control an interview and how to handle sensitive issues. Highly recommended.Bert Ruiz

This compact paperback is filled with information, from defining your interviewing problem, anatomy of interview, dynamics, probing, and strategy. The book contains actual interviews, with exercises, special problems. Guide is offered for newsbeat reporting to broadcast television and personality interviewing. A wonderful, thorough, guide to creative interviewing. ....MzRizz.

The first edition of this book was used in a journalism program I took about 13 years ago. I found it to be a great, entertaining read, and extremely valuable in its common-sense approach to interviewing. Over the years since, I have trained many beginning journalists, and I find myself returning to Metzler's ideas often. I think this book should be required reading for anyone who has to conduct information-gathering interviews.