NPR profiles John Sawatsky, a former investigative journalist and university professor, now on staff at ESPN and charged with teaching sports reporters how to ask difficult questions and produce better interviews.

(But who’s going to teach ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser how to react to criticism?)

ESPN’s interest in Sawatsky was piqued by a piece in AJR, “The Question Man“:

“Savvy sources are on to all of us, spinning back, all heat and no light, precisely because “we’re asking the wrong questions,” he says. Under attack, journalists are conceding defeat to well-oiled propaganda machines without really understanding why they’re losing. In the last decade, media trainers have become such a growth industry, “you can even find them among businessmen in Newfoundland,” Sawatsky says, teaching politicians and executives “how to run circles around journalists.”

“It’s a sophisticated battle for control,” he says. … Sawatsky contends the “message trackers are winning,” thanks to journalists who too often rely on outdated, conventional approaches to interviewing. Sawatsky denounces standard interviewing techniques as “the old methodology,” often characterized as a power struggle between interviewer and subject, as a battle of wills, a game to be won or lost.” (AJR, October 2000)

More observations about the inherent lethargy and lack of imagination exhibited by most interviewers can be found in a 2004 piece from the Ryerson Review of Journalism:

” … The easy question is anathema to Nardwuar the Human Serviette, who interviews bands for MuchMusic’s Going Coastal and has his own radio show in Vancouver. He spends hours preparing for an interview, surfing the Internet, reading music magazines and listening to music. “I’m lucky enough that I have the time, whereas other people could probably create the time but they’re too lazy or too busy doing other things,” Nardwuar says. “I won’t take on an interview unless I think I can do enough research for it.” … “

For an example of Narduar’s outrageous technique, I point you to Narduar vs. Henry Rollins, originally shot in 1998.

Many more observations about interview techniques and outcomes can be found at The Media Interview blog.

For corporate types, Donna Papacosta’s Trafcom podcast covered interviewing secrets during two broadcasts (1, 2) back in July.