Elizabeth Arnold

• Manifesto: On Interviewing
• About Elizabeth Arnold
• Elizabeth Arnold in Talk

On Interviewing

So much has already been covered on this site that I found myself at a loss for what I could contribute. Here are all these fabulous radio types offering cogent nuggets of wisdom with just the right balance of humor and insight. What could I possibly have to offer?

So like any challenging writing project, when I'm casting about and can't come up with anything good, I fall back on the truth. Yes, honesty. It always seems to work for me.

Here's my big secret. I'm shy and insecure. Really.

If there's one assignment I hate more than anything in the world it's "man on the street," "vox," or as one AP radio reporter friend calls it "triple A....Ask Any Asshole." I hate it simply because I am shy and insecure. Really.

The idea of walking up to a perfect stranger and asking a question like, "How did you feel on September 11th?" Or "what do you think about the fact that farmed salmon has red dye added to it?" I can't do it. It's intrusive, it's arrogant, it's obnoxious...and worst of all it gives the person a perfectly legitimate opportunity to tell me what a jerk I am to my face, or better yet, the once in a lifetime opportunity to snub a reporter with "no comment."

But I do it.

So, how could someone like me possibly be a poking, prodding, intrusive, obnoxious, question-asking reporter for more than 20 years, asking any asshole anything on a daily basis?

In a way I think, my insecurity and shyness has helped. I am forced to dig down deep, to summon the courage to blurt out my question. It had better be good, it had better be important, I better not be wasting this person's time.....okay just hear me out, before you start blogging all over the place about how lame I am.

One of my first reporting jobs was in a remote Yupik village in northwestern Alaska. Well, I was first and foremost the typesetter, then the honey bucket dumper, and THEN the reporter.

Anyway, it was a tough beat for any number of reasons, not the least of which was that I was a white girl in a tightly knit native village.

But here's the thing that made it most difficult.

Elizabeth Arnold in China

So, I cut my teeth as a reporter in a community where questions were prohibited. I learned patience. I learned how to listen and how to ask questions with my eyes. I learned the importance of letting the tape roll through the silences. More importantly, I left that village thinking that every interview is a gift, that when someone speaks into my microphone, they are giving me something that I should treat with respect, even if it's just an opinion about farmed salmon. Oh I know you are groaning and rolling your eyes but I'm talking ordinary people here.

PUBLIC FIGURES ARE A WHOLE DIFFERENT BALL GAME.

BUT, back to the normal folks who don't think they should be President, who don't even know why you want to know what they think. Why should they talk to you...I mean really, why?

Elizabeth Arnold in Mongolia

I have spent a lot of years reporting on indigenous people. What I learned is pretty simple. It's all about time and respect.

Years ago, I went to a tiny community in the Arctic where I was hoping to speak with an elder who supposedly was the leader of the opposition to mineral development there. She was an old woman who lived in a one room cabin. I had nowhere to sleep, no one to show me around, in short, no clue whatsoever, once I was dropped by small plane into this village.

I walked down a dirt road and started asking for her. I was petrified I wouldn't find her or even if I did, I'd get nothing.

When I got to her cabin she just grunted when I tried to explain ever so respectfully why I had come to her village and why I wanted to talk to her.

Long story short, three days later, after I had plucked her ducks (the tedious part of cleaning waterfowl before cooking it), split her wood, and helped butcher her brother's caribou, she told me she was ready. Ready to talk. And it was good.

Here's a bit of what made it into the piece. Bear in mind this was twenty years ago, so cut me some slack. Sarah had never done an interview before. Now she regularly lobbies Congress on behalf of the Gwichin.

Listen to an audio clip from Elizabeth Arnold

Sure there are people who can't wait to tell their stories, who want to take the mic in their own hands they're so eager. But most folks aren't that way. They need time to understand what you aim to do with their words, time to trust you, and they need your patience while they say what it is they want to say, just to get it out, before you start in with the pointed questions.

Elizabeth Arnold in China

I've met so many good people over the years through reporting. And bad ones too. But I can honestly say I don't think I've ever treated anything anyone's ever said to me on tape without respect, even points of view and positions so extreme and offensive to me that I could barely stay focused.

So what am I offering here with this? Maybe just the idea that everyone isn't of the MySpace generation, that what people tell us on tape is of value and we should take care with it. Maybe that's obvious? I don't know. It certainly wasn't for me and I think it's only my shyness and insecurity that makes me apologize in advance when I interrupt some already overburdened mother at the Safeway to ask her what she thought of Hillary's tears.

Ok so the truth is out of the way. Now maybe I could answer some more practical questions about interviewing? About working in remote areas? About overbearing editors? Ask away. Join Elizabeth Arnold in TALK

Related Links

• Great Bear Rainforest
• 90 Degrees North
• Elbow Room