Learning to listen

Recording interviews is a good idea for a journalist. Listening to the recordings is a bad one.

Two reasons. One, it is time-consuming. And it shouldn't be necessary. Your shorthand notes, reviewed & clarified quickly afterwards, should get what you need for the piece.

Secondly, you discover what a lousy interviewer you are. I often end up cursing my clodhopping stupidity. Why on earth didn't I let her finish then? What a crass time to change subjects. Most scary is when I hear something significant on the recording that I failed to register at all first time round.

In truth, it is not just my uselessness. Interviewing is a hard and multi-element job - keeping the questions coming, getting good notes, responding to new information, keeping the interviewee happy.

So I'm going back to college to improve. Just signed up for a course called "Lousy Listeners: How to Avoid Being One" at the News University run by the Poynter Institute. It's an extraordinary offer - lots of free modules offering on-line training for journalists. Loads of other topics - news sense, cleaning copy, typography and design. They reckon they have 10,000 registered users, so someone must rate it.

Les