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I find it somewhat sloppy when journalists simply publish the Q&A transcript of an interview. What I'm going to miss the most when real journalists aren't arou

by SeoxyS 14y ago

I find it somewhat sloppy when journalists simply publish the Q&A transcript of an interview. What I'm going to miss the most when real journalists aren't around anymore are the long-form articles and profiles that obviously took care and several interviews to craft. For example, the recently HN-featured profile of Jack Dorsey by Wired's Steven Levy[1]: But our discussion is sidetracked when the proprietor, Vincent Fung, starts a long and complicated explanation of the various tea options. Dorsey—like Jobs—is interested in Eastern thought, and after listening to a detailed rundown of the exotic choices, he approves Fung’s suggestion to try a dark and musty chunk of Pu-erh tea from China’s Yunnan Province. A few minutes later, Fung appears at the booth with a deep wooden tray and begins a carefully choreographed ceremony, pouring a continuous stream of hot water over tiny cups. Then he pours water on top of a lid that partially covers the bowl containing densely packed cakes of tea. Dorsey watches the ritual and appreciatively touches his finger to a worn corner of the tray. This is how an in-person interview is meant to be conveyed to the reader… not as a transcript. 1: http://www.wired.com/business/2012/06/ff_dorsey/ http://www.wired.com/business/2012/06/ff_dorsey/

drusenko 14y ago
You are absolutely correct, but the one thing you've failed to mention is that Steven Levy is one of the best technology writers of all time. I got to see this process first-hand when he covered Weebly for Newsweek. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2007/05/20/meet-the-next-billionaires.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2007/05/20/meet-the-ne...). It was an absolutely incredible experience. You met with the guy a few times, talked with him pretty openly about what you're doing, and he magically weaved a captivating story line out of it -- making everything sound way more interesting than you could ever hope to make yourself sound. I'm sure there are a decreasing number of long-form journalists who take the time to research their story, but it's also worth noting that there just aren't that many journalists as talented as Steven Levy.
topherjaynes 14y ago
The transcript of questions is the format of this weekly column in the Sunday Business Section and has been so since 2009. http://projects.nytimes.com/corner-office/ http://projects.nytimes.com/corner-office/ Look back through the older ones and it's actually a really good format for this sort of "what have you learned" from CEO's.
mapgrep 14y ago
This is absolutely not a simple Q&A transcript being dumped online, I assure you. You have no idea how much work goes into something like this. See the disclaimer at the top where it says the interview was condensed? A lot of information is hiding behind that disclaimer. That means that to get these 7 good questions, the writer might easily have asked 21 questions. That means that where you are reading 1-3 paragraph answers, the original answer was easily 10 paragraphs, because people tend to ramble when you ask them about their jobs, even when they're NOT being interview by the NYT. (Here's an experiment for you: Ask a friend or colleague one of those questions, do not interrupt them, in fact appear very interested, and count how many minutes the answer takes to unspool.) That means that when you're reading a nice orderly progression of thoughts, the writer probably had to take bits and pieces from different answers because the interviewee thought of something later to append to the original answer, or emailed a clarification later, or reminded himself of something. That means when you don't see words like "uh" and "um" and "like" and "I mean" and "I think" and "you know?", and when you don't see sentences that trail off into nothingness, and when you don't see run-on sentences, and when you don't see non sequiturs, that's because the writer has carefully removed them. That means the writer doesn't mention that it took three hours, easily, to transcribe a 45 minute sit down, and more time for the follow up to clarify and fact check words that were mumbled or inaudible and not in the notes. You don't want to call something like this "sloppy" unless you know what actually goes into it. You know how non-programmers often assume that very simple, easy-to-use software was similarly easy to make? How they don't think about the edge conditions that turn something that SEEMS like an easy two-week project into a three month project (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000356.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000356.html)? You know how people around here are always saying that non technical people make bad tech CEOs because they don't understand the inherent and often hidden challenges of writing code? Well, other fields are like that too, including journalism. (Disclaimer, I write these sorts of Q&As myself.)
kmfrk 14y ago
Interviews are seriously hard to do, just so that's clear. There are so many factors to complicate the matter it's not even funny. It's always funny when someone goes all New Journalism and stuff, but it's not always preferable. I liked the no-nonsense format for the interview in this particular case - as, no disrespect to Foursquare, I don't really care about the founders. I do find the company itself interesting, though.

by SeoxyS 14y ago

drusenko 14y ago

You are absolutely correct, but the one thing you've failed to mention is that Steven Levy is one of the best technology writers of all time. I got to see this process first-hand when he covered Weebly for Newsweek. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2007/05/20/meet-the-next-billionaires.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2007/05/20/meet-the-ne...). It was an absolutely incredible experience. You met with the guy a few times, talked with him pretty openly about what you're doing, and he magically weaved a captivating story line out of it -- making everything sound way more interesting than you could ever hope to make yourself sound. I'm sure there are a decreasing number of long-form journalists who take the time to research their story, but it's also worth noting that there just aren't that many journalists as talented as Steven Levy.

topherjaynes 14y ago

The transcript of questions is the format of this weekly column in the Sunday Business Section and has been so since 2009. http://projects.nytimes.com/corner-office/ http://projects.nytimes.com/corner-office/ Look back through the older ones and it's actually a really good format for this sort of "what have you learned" from CEO's.

mapgrep 14y ago

This is absolutely not a simple Q&A transcript being dumped online, I assure you. You have no idea how much work goes into something like this. See the disclaimer at the top where it says the interview was condensed? A lot of information is hiding behind that disclaimer. That means that to get these 7 good questions, the writer might easily have asked 21 questions. That means that where you are reading 1-3 paragraph answers, the original answer was easily 10 paragraphs, because people tend to ramble when you ask them about their jobs, even when they're NOT being interview by the NYT. (Here's an experiment for you: Ask a friend or colleague one of those questions, do not interrupt them, in fact appear very interested, and count how many minutes the answer takes to unspool.) That means that when you're reading a nice orderly progression of thoughts, the writer probably had to take bits and pieces from different answers because the interviewee thought of something later to append to the original answer, or emailed a clarification later, or reminded himself of something. That means when you don't see words like "uh" and "um" and "like" and "I mean" and "I think" and "you know?", and when you don't see sentences that trail off into nothingness, and when you don't see run-on sentences, and when you don't see non sequiturs, that's because the writer has carefully removed them. That means the writer doesn't mention that it took three hours, easily, to transcribe a 45 minute sit down, and more time for the follow up to clarify and fact check words that were mumbled or inaudible and not in the notes. You don't want to call something like this "sloppy" unless you know what actually goes into it. You know how non-programmers often assume that very simple, easy-to-use software was similarly easy to make? How they don't think about the edge conditions that turn something that SEEMS like an easy two-week project into a three month project (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000356.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000356.html)? You know how people around here are always saying that non technical people make bad tech CEOs because they don't understand the inherent and often hidden challenges of writing code? Well, other fields are like that too, including journalism. (Disclaimer, I write these sorts of Q&As myself.)

kmfrk 14y ago

Interviews are seriously hard to do, just so that's clear. There are so many factors to complicate the matter it's not even funny. It's always funny when someone goes all New Journalism and stuff, but it's not always preferable. I liked the no-nonsense format for the interview in this particular case - as, no disrespect to Foursquare, I don't really care about the founders. I do find the company itself interesting, though.