Mastering the Interview

New Course Enhances Journalism Program

Students Delcie Palmer (left) and Ria Riesner (center) discuss writing strategies with instructor Susan E. Reed.

This fall, the Extension School added a course in interviewing to its growing list of journalism courses. Taught by Susan E. Reed, a former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and an Emmy Award-winning producer for CBS News, the course drew a range of students, including several working journalists seeking to hone their interviewing skills.

Interviewing, said Reed, is central--not only for students hoping to embark on a career in journalism, but also for anyone who wants to know how to get to "the bottom of things." "The course offers the opportunity to delve deeply into almost any subject, be it a long-time preoccupation with a social problem, a political concern, or a newly discovered career interest," Reed noted. "Over the course of the semester [students] must interview ten sources on one topic. They learn to ask carefully researched questions, listen closely, and, depending on the nature of the story, respond compassionately or challenge the answers. Sometimes they suspect sources of lying or withholding information. Showing students how to cut through such obfuscation is where the challenge begins."

Reed's students investigated a variety of stories. ALB candidate Tom Lowenstein, an editor at DoubleTake who is working on a book about the death penalty, collaborated with classmate Emily Kumler, a reporter for a Waltham community newspaper, on a story about a death-row case. He began working on the story before he entered the course, but had difficulties with it that he hoped the class would help him resolve. He recalled, "at one point last summer I was in Philadelphia, interviewing the lawyer who had represented Walter Ogrod [the death-row inmate who was the subject of his story] at both trials, and I asked him a question that offended him. . . . I realized, again, as I left his office that I had no idea what I was doing. When I got back to Boston and saw the interviewing class in the Extension School catalogue, I thought, 'yes, that's what I need.'"

Janet Alfieri, a cartoonist whose strip, "Suburban Cowgirls," was syndicated in more than 100 newspapers from 1990-98, enrolled in the Certificate in Publishing and Communications (CPC) Program because she wanted to return to journalism and felt the need to refresh her skills. She chose Reed's course, she said, because, although she'd worked for years as a local reporter in Plymouth, Massachusetts, she wanted experience writing more substantial pieces: "I wanted to try my hand at writing magazine-length articles that had a shelf life of longer than a day or a week. Sue's course fit the bill. Interviewing at least ten people for a 4,000-word feature/final project was something I hadn't done before and required the use of writing muscles that local newspaper reporting hadn't developed." Her final project focused on the Pleasant Mountain Pet Rest cemetery in Plymouth and the patrons whose pets were buried there, a subject that intrigued her in part simply because she regularly drove past the place.

Other students investigated current news topics. Ria Riesner, an ALB candidate, interviewed members of a commission advising President Bush on Title IX. Delcie Palmer pursued her strong interest in medical reporting as she investigated the effects of state cutbacks in medical aid to the homeless and interviewed physicians and panhandlers in Boston, Worcester, and Lawrence.

Plans are in the works to offer the course again in the fall, and Reed is very interested in the possibility of teaching it online.