Talk Straight, Listen Carefully

Shows how to develop news judgment, how to organize a story and write it clearly, how to handle the complexities of honesty and ethics in journalism, and how to cover traditional beats and prepare to specialize. This book includes examples from the dailies, respected state capital city newspapers and campus publications.

---

Interviewing is a vital tool for journalists. In Talk Straight, Listen Carefully, the authors and other seasoned journalists share their interviewing experience and explain how to successfully approach all types of people, extract information, and gain solid material. Print and broadcast students and journalists will find far more than the standard interviewing tips, including:



The qualitative differences between “hard news’ interviews and feature or profile story interviews
Strategies for obtaining hard-to-get interviews
Methods for managing unwilling, shy, hostile, and fearful sources Techniques for “interviewing on the run”
Interview-related ethical questions and dilemmas 
Getting to sources beyond the initial interview 
Extracting color and human interest from an interview