How to conduct scintillating, illuminating interviews

I’ve said this before and continue to believe it: Communicators under-appreciate interviewing expertise.

It starts in college. Try to find a curriculum for mass communications or PR that offers a class on interviewing. Good luck.

Every journalism program in the country tackles the art of the interview. But PR curricula ignore the topic. We scanned a cross section of PR programs at the following universities:

None include a class on interviewing.

And once you’re in the working world, whether your role sits in-house or at a consultancy, you’ll find the same absence of how-to-interview training for PR or comms professionals. They expect you to learn on the job.

One could make an argument that the interview, more than any other factor, determines whether your pitch will resonate with journalists. The famous Chinese general Sun Tzu said, “Every battle is won before it’s ever fought.”

So it is with media relations. It’s all about the content that comes out of the interviewing or sourcing process–way before the pitch goes out the door.