Q & A Story

1. Q & A Story Course: Comm460W Instructor: Yong Tang 02/22/2011

2. What is Q & A Story? ● Definition ●Different forms of Q & A ●Sample Q & A Stories http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/us/30beliefs.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121008241549970651.html?mod=SmallBusinessMain_RelatedStories

3. What is Q & A Story? http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2010/03/qa_with_world_vision_president.html http://articles.cnn.com/2010-09-28/world/russia.moscow.explainer_1_kremlin-russian-tv-russian-president-dmitry-medvedev?_s=PM:WORLD http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200503/10/eng20050310_176350.html

4. Advantages of Q & A Story ● Readers have better sense of having direct dialogue with interviewee ● Shed more light on interviewee’s personality and personal beliefs ● Better explain complicated issues ● Save reporters a lot of time and energy in writing ● More entertaining and informative if written well

5. Disadvantages of Q & A ● Harder to condense thus occupies more space ● On-the-scene details are easily ignored ● Depends too heavily on interviewees to talk ● More challenging for novice reporters

6. What Person and What Topic? ● Newsmaker ● Expert ● Cool Subject ● Put yourself in the shoes of readers ● Don’t forget the “elephant in the room”

7. How Do You Obtain Access? ● Plan ahead and be persistent ● Develop your own sources ● Public relations professionals might help you ● Take advantage of press conferences and other opportunities ● Tell them that you represent a major media outlet with a large audience ● Show your professional portfolio and impress them

8. What Questions You Raise? ●Research, research, research ● Make an exhaustive list of questions and also prepare some talking points ● Keep your questions short and easy to understand ● Most questions should be open-ended

9. Interview Itself ● Consider in what settings you want to do the interview. in-person? on telephone? by email? one-on-one? group interview? ● Strive for the best: one-on-one and face-to-face ● Ask for an hour for the interview and settle for less ● Pick a place with minimal distractions

10. Interview Itself ● Be respectful, not confrontational ● Look for something emotional and unusual ● Take two tape recorders with you ● See if there are multimedia opportunities ● Keep natural flavor and flow of the conversation when transcribing and editing

11. Follow-Up Exercise ● Your out-of-class assignment is to select one of Q & A stories written by the instructor and critique the story ● Below is the link where you could find many Q & A stories: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/zhuanti/Zhuanti_475.html

12. Follow-Up Exercise In your paper you should: ● Explain why you select one article, not another ● Identify the strengths of the story ● Identify the weaknesses of the story ● Tell me how you would like to improve the story

13. Follow-Up Exercise ● Tell me if and how you would like to frame the questions differently if you were the reporter assigned to do the story ● Tell me if and why you would choose not to present the story in a Q & A format if you were the reporter assigned to do the story

14. Follow-Up Exercise ● This paper should have five pages (double-spaced) ● This paper should be submitted electronically to ANGEL drop box by Midnight 02/28/2011 Enjoy your Q & A exercise!