Do Journalists know how to listen and should they be taught how to? Some thoughts on contemporary interviewing practices.

Abstract

Journalists interview people; it is fundamental to their trade. And yet interviewing is given very little attention. Both practitioners and theoreticians of the media frame the interview situation in contractual and representational terms. The concentration is on the before and after. The emotional dynamics of what happens inside the interview itself are barely discussed. This paper will suggest that journalists who specialise in working with trauma develop a particular approach to listening that stands in contrast to a general professional orientation towards information extraction that tends to view emotion as the same as other forms of data.