Evan Davis, Scott Mills and Judy Finnigan were brought together as part of a staff training event at the BBC's Council Chamber in Broadcasting House by Razia Iqbal to discuss what makes a great interview. They shared their insights learnt from the hundreds, if not thousands, of interviews that they've conducted with the likes of rapper Jay-Z, politician Hillary Clinton and the anti-gay preacher Ugandan Pastor Solomon Male. [Who interviewed who is revealed below.]
The BBC College of Production will be posting a video of the event but in the meantime here are a few tips gleaned from the session:
"Sound authentic and be yourself" was Evan Davis's opening advice before he went on to say "Everything in my career has come down to two things: Blue Peter and Nationwide. With Blue Peter you can see that the presenters are genuinely interested in what people are saying."
Scott Mills said that his interviewing got better when he started relaxing and that often the hardest part of doing the interviews for his Radio 1 show wasn't the star but the huge entourage that they often brought with them. He related the story of being refused access to his own studio by one interviewee's security who asked him where he was going.
Judy Finnigan saw the interview as a conversation you might have at your kitchen table and that listening and responding to what people were saying was probably more important than having a long list of questions. For her nothing was more annoying that having a producer telling her what questions to ask in her ear mid-interview.
Paul Murphy is the acting editor of the blog
- Evan Davis interviewed Jay-Z for the Today programme; Scott Mills interviewed Solomon Male for BBC Three's The World's Worst Place to Be Gay? and Hillary Clinton was interviewed by Judy Finnigan on the Richard & Judy show.
- A video of The Art of the Interview will be posted on the BBC College of Production website where previous events and training films covering a range of topics including speech radio are available.
- Rory Cellan-Jones has blogged about What do you do when an interviewee objects to a question? following his interview for BBC Click with Mike Lazaridis, CEO of RIM, the makers of Blackberry on the College of Journalism website.
