Thoughts on Q&As

I love Q&A's, though my editor frowns upon it. I think it works if it's not the lede or centerpiece story on a page.

 

Agreed. How about taking a key point in the big metro's story that the coach has a beef about and writing a story focusing on that point, using the coach and other sources to report all views and dispel the misconception on that one issue, and supplement that story with extra 'clarifications' or 'insight' through a quick Q&A with the coach?

 

But often times that response provides insight into the person you're interviewing. It can mean you're providing a context or angle that your interviewee hasn't considered before, for example, and leads to a few phenomenal off-the-cuff, expanding-on-that-view questions that takes your Q&A in another interesting direction or leads to more unintended insights that flesh out your interviewee's character or insights on topic at hand.

 

The trick is to either have your subject well researched and ask 10 or so qood questions and follow or -- if that's not really possible for a high school player or something -- to ask basic questions and not necessarily use them for the Q&A but to see if something is there or to pursue

Ex: I hate high school Q&As that ask (for example): How old were you when you started playing baseball?
And the answer will be that the person was 4-5 and started in tee-ball.

Well, that's probably the case for 99 percent of high school baseball/softball players. If they were 13 when they started playing, that would be interesting.

 

Exactly. I usually ask about 15 questions and then drop out a couple that didn't yield an interesting response (unless they are a set-up for a more interesting one of course).

You definitely see more personality through a Q&A. If they have a very complicated personal story though, it doesn't work.

 

I think I might go with a news story for this issue, and save the Q&A for something that may be a bit more of a puff piece. But good to know that people generally like to read them.

 

<b>Do you like Q & A's?</b>

I don't mind them.

 

Give that man a cigar.