The Geography of the

Interview

A good interview is more than the questions

A Farm Radio International learning module

The Geography of the Interview

In this module you will learn:

How to select an interview location and what to listen for

Optimal arrangements for microphone position for good sound
Optimal arrangements for furniture to set your guest at ease
Where to stand with respect to your guest in a stand-up interview
What to look for when interviewing a government official

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

The sit-down interview

Selecting a location

Where you do the interview can affect the quality of the answers
as well as the ability of listeners to understand what is being
said.

What do you think are some of the key considerations when

selecting an interview location?

After you have thought about it, look at the quiz that follows and
see if you thought of any of the considerations listed there.

Look for a place where you and your guest will be as comfortable
as possible

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

For example standing under a hot, noonday sun is not a good idea,
especially for a long interview

Listen for distracting sounds like machinery or incongruous

sounds (e.g. chickens clucking in a story about goats).

Listen for location sounds that compliment your interview.

For example chickens clucking in a story about chicken rearing.

Listen with one ear

When deciding on a location for an interview, put your finger over one
ear and listen carefully.

If you are indoors you will hear the ambience of the room, the fans and air
conditioners

If you are outdoors you will hear the wind, traffic, running water, birds and
animals

Why just one ear?

Our two ears and brain combine to let us isolate conversation and
ignore most background distractions. We can do this because we can
focus on a narrow directional band of sound.
We suggest you listen with one ear when getting ready for an interview
because that is how a microphone hears. A microphone has no
intelligence and hears all sounds democratically giving them equal
importance in the soundscape.
When our interviews are played back on most radios, the sound is
monophonic. Voices and background noises seem to come from the
same place, making it impossible for our ears to focus on the voices
without focusing on the background at the same time.

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

The sit-down interview

For longer interviews, it is usually most comfortable for you and

your guest to be seated.
You can conduct the interview indoors or outdoors.
In the illustrations that follow, imagine you are looking down
from above at the interview set up.

Which arrangement is best?

Below are three schematics for a sit-down interview as seen

from above. Look at each and select the one that you think
would result in the best conversational interview.

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

Look at each one again and select the one that you think would
result in the best hot-seat or confrontational interview.
Are there other arrangements you can design that you think
would be better?
What about this one?

Some things to consider

Personal space

Every one of us grows up with a sense of ownership of a circle of space

around us. How big this circle is varies among individuals and cultures
How big this circle is also depends on the relationship between the two
people

Larger for strangers, smaller for lovers

When another person crosses into our circle we feel threatened and
uncomfortable
Tension rises, heart rate goes up

An experiment you can try with a friend or colleague.

Ask the friend to stand still and dont tell him/her what to expect
Walk slowly towards him/her from directly in front
At some point the colleague will start to move backwards to keep

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

distance

You will have tried to cross that invisible circle and will have triggered a
flight response
See how the guest leans back in
this picture.
He is trying to keep the
interviewer out of his personal
space.
He cant escape by going
forward He feels he must
retreat.

The flight response

Intrusion into personal space triggers the fight/flight response in us.

We look for an escape route and the adrenalin that boosts our heart
rate, readies us to runaway.
If there is no escape we become confrontational (ready to fight).

Knowing that, a good interviewer allows personal space and

escape routes in the interview geography

One of the keys to a good interview is to provide the guest with

a level of comfort, reducing the sense of threat that you as the
interviewer poses.

The smaller the circle of personal space around the guest, the better
(how to reduce the diameter of this circle is discussed in a module
called The Etiquette of the Interview)
Providing a clear exit path for the guest will help put him/her at ease.

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

Which arrangement is best?

Lets look at the 3 arrangements again

We have marked the escape routes with colored arrows.

Take a moment. Can you think of other things to consider when

arranging a sit-down interview?

Many interviewers have found the right-most arrangement, the

parallel sit-down, to be the best arrangement for
non-confrontational interviews.

One advantage is that the hand and arm holding the microphone
can rest on the arm of the chair or on the interviewers thigh.
The microphone can be close enough to both guest and
interviewer that it does not have to move very much.

If your intention is to intimidate and be confrontational then the

geography of A could be the choice. However, few if any,
interviews should be done this way. It is considered rude and
manipulative by most credible journalists.

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

Any interview can have tough questions without being rude and
the more relaxed the guest, the more open and honest their
answers are likely to be.

What if?

Now lets pause and think about a real-life farm.

There may not be nice chairs to do a sit down interview.

If that is the case, what can you do?

Options could include

Sitting on a mat

Can you arrange you and your guest in the parallel geography on a
mat?

Using benches instead of chairs.

Can you arrange to sit on benches in a parallel geography?

If that is too awkward, what might you do?

Here is the parallel arrangement in

a situation more like that on a farm.
Every situation involves some
compromises and decisions on the
part of the interviewer.
Can you see some here?

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

The stand-up interview

An interview in the field, with the ambient sounds of the farm as

background, can give listeners a real sense of place. Such
interviews can often be done standing up, especially if you
anticipate the interview will be relatively short in duration and
you do not have a hot noonday sun to deal with.

As with sit-down interviews we have to take the geography into

account.

The same principles apply. The difference is that now, because

both interviewer and guest are standing, it is easier to invade
the guests personal space unintentionally, making them feel
uncomfortable.

Without taking some care, the result may be not be the best
interview.

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

10

Again, lets look at potential geographies

Here is what they might look like in the real world.

In stand-up interviews most interviewers and interviewees find

B, the right angle arrangement, most comfortable.

There is less awkward twisting of the head and shoulders.

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

11

The microphone can be properly positioned.

Each participant has clear escape space to look away from the
other.

Half and half?

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

12

Interviewing officials

You may feel intimidated by the prospect, but interviewing

officials should not be different than any other interview you do.

Your goal, as always, is to give your guest the best chance to

contribute to the focus of your story.

Officials will often want to be interviewed in their offices.

This can pose problems with sound quality because of awkward

furniture arrangements and noisy air conditioners.

Also there are geographic considerations that might surprise

you.

In the rest of this section we explore what you can do to get the
best interview of an official from a quality point of view.

Selecting a location

Often an official will suggest you interview them as they sit at

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

13

their desks.

Do you think this is a good idea?

Why?
Why not?

Consider the following pieces of the behind the desk

geography

The interviewer is usually far away from the guest. This makes getting
the microphone close enough for good sound quality much more
difficult.
While the guest has no easy escape routes, they have a fortress-like
wall in front of them. With the desk as a wall they can feel protected and
not may answer questions fully and openly
The chair on which the official is sitting may be on wheels and may
swivel and rock back and forth. This can add annoying squeaks and the
guest may not stay focused on the interviewer.

That means the sound quality of the interview will suffer from the guest
going off-mic and from the extraneous noises.

It may also mean the guest is less focused on the topic of the interview and
your questions.

Look at the arrangement again this time paying attention to the imaginary
line from the guests eyes to the interviewers eyes.
Often officials have large, higher chairs than those offered to visitors.

The best geography puts both guest and interviewer at the same
eye level.

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

14

Both interviewer and interviewee are equal partners in the

interview.

Knowing these things, what can you do?

Suggest politely that for technical reasons it is better for the interviewer
and interviewee to sit closer together.
Suggest politely that the guest will be more comfortable away from the
desk and its distractions, better able to deliver clear responses.
Suggest that the noise from the air-conditioner near the window will
interfere if the guest does not move to a better location.

There are other benefits to moving the official into a better

geography.

It shows the official that you are a professional.

The official will trust you more feel safer knowing that you know what
you are doing.
You have taken control of the situation which will help you guide the
interview.

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

15

Placing the microphone

Microphones are sensitive to all sounds and not just the voices in
the interview.

Placing the microphone is a balance between

Making sure the guest is heard well above distracting backgrounds.

Making sure the microphone (or recorder) does not threaten the
guest.

The temptation is to place the microphone or digital recorder as

close to the guest as possible to record the cleanest sound.

This might not be a good idea because:

A close microphone can record annoying mouth sounds.

The microphone can obscure the eye line between guest and interviewee.
If you have to have good sound for the questions as well as the answers
there will be a lot of microphone movement.

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

16

Here is a good guideline

Hold the microphone below the eye line between you and your
guest

Keep it about a hand-span (15 cm) from the guests chin

Of course you want to keep the microphone out of the wind as

much as possible.

If there is a distracting noise not relevant to the interview (e.g.

air-conditioner or traffic) try to keep the source of that noise
behind you, not behind the guest.
Maximize the distance between you and the source of noise.

Other resources

Here are links to some other resources you might find useful.

BBC Academy: Interviewing for radio (requires Internet access and

needs Real Player to listen to the audio examples).
Click the Attachment button (upper right corner of this screen) to see
other documents related to this module. *This is only available when
you run the module in your web-browser

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

17

Thank you

You have now completed the module The Geography of the

Interview. Remember, you can come back and review this
module at any time.

Farm Radio International

The Geography of the Interview

18