(Copyright © 1998 T Bruce Tober)
"The story's great. But I'm afraid I can't pay your expenses for the trip to Canada."
JR Wilson, editor of CompuWeb (an online magazine) was commenting on an article I'd written for him about the censorship of a Website in Canada. I wondered what he meant.
"Well you did go to Canada to interview the people, didn't you? How else could you have got all that detail?"
He was referring to parts of my article such as:
"It's his school's Spring Break and Sayre, youngest of the four Sayre siblings, is sitting at his computer in the boot room of his home. The tiny room also contains the cat litter box (directly beside the computer desk), and shelves of political books. The front door to the house opens into the room."
Er, no. Actually, I hadn’t gone to Canada to do the piece. I’d not left the comfort of my home-office.
I responded to Wilson's E-mail by telling him that how I got that information was a trade secret.
But it's simple really. I got it by doing what journalists are supposed to do, by asking questions. The entire article was based on a series of E-mail interviews.
The debate over the effectiveness of E-mail interviews still rages from time to time on the various journalism fora on the Net.
The usual reasons many journalists are against this type of interview include a lack of interaction and of immediacy of follow-up. Others question the ability to verify the person at the other end of the E-mail exchange.
As Tom StewartGordon of StewartGordon Associates, Inc., Dallas, Tx says, "we had better make sure the respondent is who we think he is and not a secretary, PA or someone else who cannot stand by his answers." Stewart-Gordon has been conducting about 20% of his interviews by E-mail only since he started doing them this way three or four years ago. He types his responses to my E-mail query while sitting at his desk in Dallas, in surroundings he describes as "Considerably less opulent than I deserve."
He explains that "Maybe three quarters [of his online interviews] start out via email and finish up on the phone or in person.
Stewart-Gordon describes himself as a "survivor of the great New York newspaper strike. He is editor of the SCOR Report, a monthly newsletter covering small business finance and securities law.
"I am not terribly concerned about security, but perhaps we ought to see what the state of the art is." He likes doing online interviews because he believes he gets a "better percentage of responses" and admits also to enjoying the "gadget phenomenon". But, he counters this by acknowledging that the interview "subject has time to hone his responses."
Veteran or novice journalist, the use of online interviewing is mixed.
Marie Coady, a "novice" of only two years in the business and a very popular weekly column to her credit, for example, has been using the technique for only about six months now. She considers it, "Unobtrusive. It gives the reporter more time to decide what and how to ask your questions as well as getting to review andcorrect them before they're sent."
Sitting in front of her computer at a desk in a corner of her living room in a small town in Massachusetts, Coady adds, "People are more congenial because of the formatno pressure and you've identified yourself and left a trail they can follow. For some reason that makes them feel comfortable. Most of the time you reach people at work and they're more professional."
"Misunderstandings that take time to correct and sometimes not getting a prompt reply," are two of the disadvantages she sees in the method, as she looks out her window at the trees, manicured lawns and a neighbor's daycare facility from a rather messy desk. Her puppy sleeps snoring at her feet, while her cat jumps on my lap for attention, begging for attention, as she concludes that two other problems with online interviewing are that the "responses are brief and sometimes incomplete" and that there's a lack of spontaneity.
Coady, a freelance, covers a variety of "beats". "I pick and choose what I want to do for my column and a feature called Everyday People. For that I interview locals who do interesting things. Historical articles, personal profiles and human interest. Occasionally I'll report on a news story. She does about 10% of her interviews by E-mail, 30% by phone, and about 60% Faceto-Face.
Meanwhile, Jeff Kaliss, a freelance, in San Francisco, covers World music, jazz, theater, opera, film, cyberculture, and some travel. He hasn't yet used the technique, for the very simple reason of not having had the need. "I haven't had a reason to yet. Interaction has always been important to me, which is why I prefer inpersons to phone, and would probably prefer phone to email, though I'd do email if it were the only way for me to get to someone or something I really craved."
Tapping out responses to my query on his keyboard while surrounded by the sounds of Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" on a nearby radio, Eric Wakin, Contributing Editor with _Beyond Computing Magazine_, sits in his Madison Avenue office. As one might expect (though you'd be wrong to think it unanimous) he does do interviews via Email and has done for about two years. But, he admits, the vast majority, about 95% of his interviews are done by phone.
He notes, "The interviewee has the time to answer whenever s/he wants. And the Interviewer gets text responses," which, as anyone who's ever had to transcribe scribbled notes or tape recordings of interviews knows, is a God-send. The disadvantages, on the other hand include a lack of immediate follow-ups and a subject choosing not to answer questions "and you can't rephrase them for him/her" in an effort to come at the same point from a different angle.
A freelance who covers technology and business for _Beyond Computing Magazine_, Wakin also writes travel books and on academic topics. He's been a professional writer (ie paid) for about ten years but doesn't "define myself as a journalist necessarily".
And finally, down in Fort Smith, Ar, John Lancaster, a freelance trade and technology writer, prefers the fin de siecles' trendy technology, the telephone. "I triedit [an online interview] once and it worked well. What it does, basically, is set up a foundation of information and provide quotable material. But I prefer a telephone interview."
A 20-year-veteran reporter, he likes its cheapness and speed and that "it also allows the interviewee to consider his/her answers more carefully. Further, you can quickly follow-up for more details at little or no cost.. But," he adds, "That 'time to consider' may not be good in a 'breaking news' article."