Steve Jobs and journalism

In writing your feature profiles, you are relying on only two sources -- the person you interview and your own personal observation. But most news and feature stories require several sources. Please read this short blog post by Bobby Hawthorne, a writing instructor from Austin, Texas and author of The Radical Write.

On a completely different note . . . with the recent death of Apple founder Steve Jobs, you undoubtedly heard reports of how innovative he was and what an immense impact he had on personal computing technology. But did you know that he also had a major influence on journalism? Read this brief article about it, then watch what Jobs had to say about journalism in his own words in this video clip.

Finally, if you have time please listen to Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement speech.

Flickr Creative Commons photo by Lightsurgery

Interviewing Tips and Less is More

Although everyone in the class still needs more practice with writing hard news leads and writing stories that follow the basic inverted pyramid structure, it's time to move towards other forms of journalistic writing, beginning with basic feature writing. Features rely more heavily on quotes and interviews, so we need to spend some time in and out of class considering and practicing what makes a good interview.

It's true that the best interviews are like good conversations. That is, in most cases the interview should be a comfortable give-and-take session where you and the person you interview talk with each other, not at each other. Of course, if the interviewee is hostile or defensive, this may not be the case. But the three best things you can do to have a good interview are:

1) Prepare thoroughly by researching the topic and/or the person and list questions.
2) Take good notes and record the interview if possible.
3) Listen very attentively.

Being a good listener is the most important thing you can do. One of the biggest mistakes many inexperienced reporters make is worrying so much about what question to ask next, that they don't realize something important or unexpected that the interviewee has just said.

Here are a couple of short videos I would like you to watch. The first is some good advice about interviewing from network anchor Katie Couric. The second is from National Public Radio's Scott Simon.

There's an old saying in journalism: "Less is more."

Forget about the times you wrote as much as you could about something in order to impress the teacher or give your reader the impression that you really know what you're talking about. In journalism brevity is key. Hard news stories must be concise or you'll confuse and lose the reader. While feature stories allow writers to be more descriptive and more creative, that doesn't mean you should necessarily start writing a lot more. Right now we're focusing on short profiles so that means first do thorough reporting and interviewing, then pick the very best information to write your story. Don't give the reader all of the information. While your words may be sacred to you, you have to be able to cut what's not necessary and edit wordy phrases.

Think of it as fat-free writing.

Click on the links below to see three more examples of 300-word stories by Brady Dennnis, then comment on which you like the best and why.

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Interviewing: Who runs the show?

Who should determine what should be asked in an interview? The reporter? Or the person being interviewed? Does someone being interviewed have to answer every question he or she is asked?

As we begin to consider the practice and art of interviewing, take a look at a clip of an interview that took place on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight a few months ago. Morgan was questioning Christine O'Donnell, a well known member of the highly conservative Tea Party. Though O'Donnell held public office at one time, she was on his show to promote her new book -- at least that's what she wanted to do. When Morgan's line of questioning wasn't up to her liking, things got a bit tense.

Was Morgan rude and unprofessional? Was he seeking to provoke his guest for publicity? Or was O'Donnell a prima donna for seeking to control the interview to her liking? Shouldn't a prominent politician, particularly one who has a reputation for being eccentric, expect difficult or even heated questions?

Watch the video clip and weigh in with your reactions.

If you're interested, you can learn more background about O'Donnell and the Twitter war with Morgan that followed her walkout in this article. More on the hacking scandal in the days ahead . . .

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