By / Karen少女凱倫
About 6-7 years ago during my master's degree, I had to participate in a news competition and went through many friends and professors' recommendations to find interview subjects. One of them, a case that my professor particularly praised, was unable to share their own feelings and thoughts—only expressing "others also feel this way."
After about an hour of interviewing, I completely couldn't understand their thoughts and perspectives, and didn't get any usable material. I said directly to the interviewee: "You didn't share your own story," "Anyone could say those things," and although I felt I was being unreasonable, I was arrogantly convinced that the problem was with them.
Until last week, another interviewee, also recommended by a government agency, sat down and began telling many disjointed, illogical stories. I had to repeatedly confirm the connections between the stories, and even after confirming, still didn't understand their significance. Unable to let her continue like this, I kept circling around, and finally changed my approach. I asked her about something she had done.
Me: You mentioned earlier that you started making documentaries in your first and second year of high school—why did you start making documentaries? (This question had little to do with the main topic of the interview)
Her: Because I wanted to document moments in life. Through documentaries, I could preserve touching moments and make these moments meaningful, influencing others.
Me: For the moments you wanted to preserve, did you have any standards?
Her: Those would be touching moments, moments that resonated with life.
At this point, I just looked at her without speaking, expecting her to open up and tell her own story. Sure enough, she began to mention why a particular father-daughter relationship improvement story from her earlier disjointed narrative had left such a deep impression on her.
The reason was that her own parents had divorced, her father has Asperger's syndrome with social interaction difficulties, and even had a restraining order from the police preventing him from approaching them. This is why she was so moved by the family relationship improvement story mentioned earlier—because she wanted to know if her current intentional efforts to contact her father would someday be rewarded, or if they would end in disappointment.
She also mentioned that her older brother is different from her. Her brother hates their father to death, but she respects everyone's choices and wouldn't criticize or think there's anything wrong with her brother's decision. This is also why when executing her project, she could chat with so many people—because she brings no judgment. All of this relates to why she makes documentaries.
Once I asked the key questions, the interview became very smooth, and I finally began to feel that this person's story before me was real and warm.
After the interview ended, I reflected back on the mistake I made during my master's degree. It was absolutely not that the interviewee was inadequate, but rather how the interviewer, through preliminary research and understanding of the interviewee's life, could attempt different questions in a short time to evoke the interviewee's reflections on life and lower their guard, so as to hear deeper and more profound stories.
In the past, I wasn't good at street interviews, probably because I was stuck in a questioning approach that felt too distant, unable to make street interviewees relax their guard, and even both parties had their pride. After this profound questioning experience, I deeply realized that the ability to ask good questions is truly very important, requiring far more patience and understanding.
【Author Introduction】
Karen少女凱倫 / Hua Yunxi花芸曦
Reporter / Anchor, SET iNews Program Group
Formerly: TVBS News Writer, ETtoday Community Editor
Columnist for Fresh Times Book, ETtoday, and T談談
