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bill steigerwald's avatar

Hi Gary -- Good tips. Wish I had read these 40 years ago.... I had to learn on the job the hard way about making sure your recorder was on and making sure to take notes.

I loved Q&As. During my long and undistinguished journalism career in newspapers, I did hundreds of interviews by phone or in person with newsmakers, authors, think-tank gurus, celebrities, politicians, movie stars -- everyone from Nikita Khrushchev's son to Newt Gingrich to Depak Chopra to Ted Sorensen to Tucker Carlson to Jimmy Stewart to Milton Friedman.

Many of them are dying off or reappearing in the news, which, if I can outlive them, gives me a chance to re-run them on Substack. https://clips.substack.com/s/q-and-as-interviews-with-the-smart

Before I did a Q&A by phone I'd write out my questions longhand on a legal tablet and then number them in the following order:

No.1 was an obvious opening question, hooked to a news event or a book the person might have written.

Next were a bunch of questions that could be asked in almost any order as part of the conversation.

Last was an obvious final ‘What now?’ or ‘What’s next?' question that looked to the future or wrapped things up.

I did one of these Q&As for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review's Opinion section every Saturday for about eight or nine years — about 400 total, I figure.

I had to transcribe every interview -- each probably 1,000 words -- and then boil/edit it down to fit a certain length. When we were able to put the interviews on the Internet, we posted both the full interview and the shorter for-print one.

Most times I had to do some gentle editing to make sure everything made sense. But Milton Friedman at age 89 spoke so clearly and succinctly, I don’t think I had to add or subtract a word.

For them that's interested, this link has an image of my scribbled Friedman questions.... https://clips.substack.com/publish/post/34958560

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Gary Ross's avatar

Thanks, Bill. I'll check out your old interviews. And isn't it amazing when you interview someone as articulate as Friedman? Michael Pitfield, a former Canadian civil servant and senator, would include in his thoughtful, spoken replies, "Period. New paragraph."

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bill steigerwald's avatar

That's pretty crazy. My biggest problem was typing up the conversations. I'm still a lousy typist after x-million words. But I quickly learned that you couldn't trust anyone else to do the transcriptions.

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Kirsten Fogg's avatar

Glad Stephen Kimber told me to sign up, or maybe it was David Hayes(!) As a journalist I enjoyed this. Love the superlative question. I always have a second recording going on if I can. Also, people talk more when walking. Just my finds. Looking forward to your next piece. May I suggest something on how to rebuild rejected pitches? It's really really tough right now as a freelancer and even though I'm a good seasoned journalist, I'm not a known name in Canada and rejections come hard and fast. I want to be able to re-use all the time/effort I put into researching rejected pitches.

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Gary Ross's avatar

Sorry to be so slow. Walking, yes—a great one. In another case, shooting pool with the subject really helped open things up.

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Gary Ross's avatar

Hi Kirsten. Agree that walking was great (the few interviews I've done as a pedestrian), but I always worried whether the conversation was being recorded clearly enough. As for rebuilding rejected pitches, I'd suggested tweaking the pitch for a different outlet rather than resubmiitting to the same place. You really need to understand each outlet's audience. Generic pitches are usually obvious to an editor. (And thanks Stephen and/or David, fine journalists both.)

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Kirsten Fogg's avatar

Thanks Gary, I never send out generic pitches and with the magazine/media industry changing so much and so quickly, I will look at and learn what other outlets would like. Thank you!

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Gabrielle Bauer's avatar

Great piece and story!

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Gary Ross's avatar

Thank you. What else should I write about?

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Gabrielle Bauer's avatar

People are always interested in reading about personal or professional challenges (and overcoming them).

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Kath Boake's avatar

I agree. I really enjoyed this post Gary. More of these personal professional experience stories!

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