Interview Skills and Article Writing for Content Creators

For bloggers, marketers and journalists, interviewing is a valuable way to obtain fresh new content. Interviews add perspective and texture to articles and recordings in a way that can’t be matched by other research forms. Best of all, original interviews give your audiences content that’s not available anywhere else – only on your platform.  

However, the success of your interviews depends on your rigorous prework and expert conversational skills. In this one-day workshop, you’ll learn a range of techniques that professional journalists use to draw out stories that are engaging, informative and factually correct.  

Through several case studies and much class discussion, participants will also gain insights into how the best journalists guide a discussion, without dominating it.  

The workshop begins with a look at preparation steps, ethical matters and rapport-building techniques. Next, we explore questioning and conversation techniques that will help you maintain a fluid dialogue. These techniques will reduce the need to edit later – useful if you’re interviewing for audio or video. Participants will then use role play to practice asking open-ended questions, getting a conversation back on track, pushing for details, and probing for truth.  

Following this practice-run, participants will interview a special guest live via Zoom. The guest will be selected by the facilitator in advance based on their personal story: whether as a business owner, immigrant, researcher or other experience. We will prepare for this together on the day.  

Finally, the group will practice writing their interviews as a short article. This part of the workshop covers essential structures for writing feature articles, including compelling headings, openings and closes. The workshop ends with essential fact-checking and review techniques. 

This course is a useful complement to our Media Release Writing Course. You may also wish to follow up with our Editing and Proofreading Course. 

Aims

This course aims to give content creators and researchers more confidence in interviewing a range of subjects, using classic journalism techniques. Participants will gain first-hand experience at interviewing a live interview subject and will leave with clear frameworks and checklists to help manage their interviews.