Secrets to Great Podcast Interviews
October 30th, 2006 by 
adminThere’s more to a good interview than sticking a microphone under the first expert you can find. In fact, journalists spend years perfecting the art of a good interview, and only the best actually secure the much coveted spot on primetime TV or radio. While you don’t have to worry about ratings, you do have to worry about getting loyal subscribers—and believe us, if you bore them to death with a bad interview, they won’t come back. Here are some tricks from the masters.
First of all, just because a person’s an authority doesn’t mean he’ll make a good interview. The classic example: the dull-as-doornails scholar. So maybe he knows more about the topic than anyone else, but if he has a tendency to ramble, uses abstract and high-falutin’ words, mumbles under his breath or speaks so sloooooowwwly you fall asleep before he finishes a sentence, then he’s no fit for live interviews. You need someone who sounds good, and the best gauge of that is that he can express his ideas concisely and has a gift for simplifying complex ideas or at least provide interesting examples. Why do you think Dr. Phil—who’s not exactly the best psychologist on the block—has his own show? He knows how to inform…but also, to entertain.
Second of all, you have to brief your interviewee. Prepare him for the interview by describing your listeners. How much do they already know about the topic? What would they be most interested in? What are their biggest concerns regarding that topic? Then, have the courtesy to tell him ahead of the time the framework of the interview. What kind of questions can he expect to get? Agree ahead of time on some “copy points” or major ideas that you hope he’d tackle somewhere in his discussion. It won’t only keep the interview on track, but you won’t shock the interviewee on air with a question he’s not ready for. Nobody likes looking stupid.
Third of all, edit. Yes, edit. This isn’t a live show, and so you can shorten the interview. Don’t take answers out of context—that’s unethical—but you can remove the questions that didn’t have good answers, or at least the uhms and the aaahs. Remember that two minutes is an eternity in Radio Land, and so the interview has to be fast-paced.
That’s the interview proper. But did you know that work begins even before you turn on the microphone? Yes—the worst mistake you can make is the “parachute” interview, meaning you jump right into it without any kind of background research.
An interview can only be as good as its questions. By researching ahead of time on the topic, you can chance upon relevant news, latest research, or interesting trivia that can help you ask new or more in-depth questions. For example, asking “what is colic?” to a baby expert is really useless—he’ll give a generic answer you’d find in any parenting book. But you can ask, “So what do you think about research that links colic to birth trauma?” Aaah, then you’ve got a chance to really get the ball rolling.