I don’t think my ratio of good interviews to bad interviews has changed. In my estimation, about one in four interviews I do is a good one. Of late, I’ve interviewed a lot of boring people. Most people, most porners, are simply not interesting, though I find porners about the most interesting of any group. They are far more interesting than politicians and athletes. I remember interviewing Senator Alan Cranston and others between 1985-87. I also covered the San Francisco 49ers and the Sacramento Kings for KAHI/KHYL radio news.
Regarding my dull interviews of late: Please show me other interviews with these same people that are more interesting. I doubt you’ll find any. I don’t think the problem is with the interviewer. It’s with the interviewee. Most people are boring.
Regarding interviewing technique: Asking confrontational questions rarely results in interesting answers. Putting a value statement in your question doesn’t work. It may make the interviewer (Mike Wallace etc) look like a tough guy but it does nothing for the person reading/watching the interview. There’s a protocol to interviewing just as there is to taking a medical history.
Nine out of ten of my posts/interviews have little meaning, but I have to keep pumping them up there to maintain my audience, massage my sources, etc, to get that one out of ten story that pops. That’s the nature of the beast. This is my living. If money was not a concern, I would not be writing on porn.
It is nice to have the fundamentals on the performers, but the interviews are sometimes difficult to watch because they sound too artificial. Artificial in the sense that it sounds as though you’re reading questions from a script and forcing a conversation. A good interview is informative, but also needs to have a natural flow.
You don’t have to be confrontational or rude to produce an interesting interview, despite what legions of knuckle dragging Howard Stern or Bill O’Reilly fans would have you believe. It doesn’t make you look like a tough guy, it makes you look like an asshole without any manners.
Your never going to make great interviews all the time no matter what the subject. Also we see a different value through the filter of change over time so significance will be in the future. Its good that your working on your photography and maybe see more value in that now. You certainly seem to be more confident with the camera.
Great interviewees makes great interviews.Sure with the average Luke’s interview,you pretty much already know all the questions he will ask.Imagine if it would be the same for Terry Gross and alike 🙂
How come her interview are so good.Because the persons she interviews,have a past, a story.So,she(or her researchers)make big search,view,read tons of stuff and from that,she selects her questions that are pretty much specific for that very person.
Luke can’t do much research about the persons he interviews