Appendix A: Competent Interviewing

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Interviewees on The Colbert Report should expect a few curveballs from the show’s satirically minded host, Stephen Colbert. SIPA USA/Jackson/White House/Sipa Press/Newscom

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IN THIS APPENDIX

  • The Nature of Interviews
  • Types of Interviews
  • The Format of an Interview
  • Understanding Roles and Responsibilities in Interviews
  • The Job Interview

Interviews can be scary. Sitting down to speak with someone you don’t know—be it a potential employer, a new doctor, a college admissions officer, or a journalist—requires a certain amount of preparation and courage, especially when the person who’ll be interviewing isn’t even a person at all. That’s what guests face when they agree to an interview on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report (at least until 2015, when the show will end due to its host’s jump to the Late Show). Host Stephen Colbert is not a real journalist—he’s a character invented and brought to life by the actor and comedian with whom he shares a face and a name. Colbert the character prides himself in being a bully, especially in interviews, where, as one critic explains, he “poses either ridiculous questions on serious topics or earnest questions on ludicrous ones” (Patterson, 2006). In a Colbert Report interview, Colbert always emerges victorious: “I am the only host in America who has never lost an interview. I am 847–and–0, all knockouts” (The Colbert Report, 2011).

After you have finished reading this Appendix, you will be able to

  • Define the nature of interviews
  • Outline the different types of interviews
  • Describe the three parts of an interview: opening, questions, and conclusion
  • Devise an interview strategy from the interviewer’s point of view
  • Prepare for the role of interviewee
  • Secure job interviews and manage them with confidence

Such interviews can be especially perilous for politicians—especially for those who agree to sit down with Colbert for his famous “Better Know a District” series. Unlike the show’s studio interviews, in which Colbert speaks with authors, academics, celebrities, and government leaders in real time, in front of a live audience, the “Better Know. . .” series is pretaped, usually on location, and each five-minute comedy segment is edited down from a much longer discussion (some subjects report that the full interviews can take as long as ninety minutes) (Ross, 2007). The final product usually portrays Colbert as the hardball questioner, unconcerned with any answers the interviewee might provide. When he sat down with Seattle’s Jim McDermott, for example, he asked the psychiatrist-turned-congressman, “Do you enjoy working with the mentally disturbed, or would you rather be a psychiatrist?” His joke delivered, Colbert moved on before giving McDermott a chance to answer (The Colbert Report, 2013).

What would prompt a congressman to submit to an interview knowing well in advance that he will likely be made to look like a fool? And how does an interview like this one relate to other interviews—from serious news features to job interviews? Here we’ll take a look at interviews from a communication standpoint—how they relate to other forms of communication, what kinds of factors are at work in an interview situation, and how anyone—from recent college graduates to freshman congressmen and congresswomen, to real and fake news pundits—can improve their interviewing skills.