Asking the Best Questions

Contact Jeremy Lucyk for review and ordering details

 

Interviewing is more complex than just asking questions. A successful interview involves multiple skills, including active listening, commitment to a line of questions, and the ability to adapt to whatever unfolds throughout the process.

Paul McLaughlin has spent decades studying the art of the interview as a working journalist, interviewing coach, and educator. Using personal examples and anecdotes involving other journalists, this comprehensive handbook offers easy-to-read, practical tips for professional questioners in any field — whether in the newsroom, the boardroom, or a podcast studio.

Asking the Best Questions offers insights for every step of the process: researching and securing an interview, building trust and rapport, developing empathy, overcoming your fears, and creating strategies to navigate conversations about complex and traumatic issues. Along the way, McLaughlin shows you how to deal with difficult guests, intimidating topics and unexpected twists and turns.

McLaughlin shares the invaluable tools he carries with him into every interview. And he answers the question everyone wants to know: what to do when the interview doesn’t go as planned?

SKU: 978-0919852-8-53 Categories: , ,

Description

Asking the Best Questions

A Comprehensive Interviewing Handbook for Journalists, Podcasters, Bloggers, Vloggers, Influencers, and Anyone Who Asks Questions under Pressure

 By Paul McLaughlin

 

Interviewing is more complex than just asking questions. A successful interview involves multiple skills, including active listening, commitment to a line of questions, and the ability to adapt to whatever unfolds throughout the process.

Paul McLaughlin has spent decades studying the art of the interview as a working journalist, interviewing coach, and educator. Using personal examples and anecdotes involving other journalists, this comprehensive handbook offers easy-to-read, practical tips for professional questioners in any field — whether in the newsroom, the boardroom, or a podcast studio.

Asking the Best Questions offers insights for every step of the process: researching and securing an interview, building trust and rapport, developing empathy, overcoming your fears, and creating strategies to navigate conversations about complex and traumatic issues. Along the way, McLaughlin shows you how to deal with difficult guests, intimidating topics and unexpected twists and turns.

McLaughlin shares the invaluable tools he carries with him into every interview. And he answers the question everyone wants to know: what to do when the interview doesn’t go as planned?

Asking the Best Questions is a unique and indispensable resource for:

  • Journalists
  • Podcasters
  • Bloggers
  • Vloggers
  • Influencers
  • Anyone who asks questions under pressure

 

About the Author

 

Paul McLaughlin is a leading interviewing expert and the author of Asking Questions: The Art of the Media Interview (1986). A former interviewing trainer for CBC Radio and TV, he has had a long career as a freelance journalist for both broadcast and print.  He has also taught journalism at Algonquin College and Carleton University in Ottawa, and Ryerson University and (currently) York University, in Toronto.

www.paulmclaughlin.ca.

 

Praise for Asking Questions: The Art of the Media Interview

(also published as How to Interview)

By Paul McLaughlin

 

“This is the best book I know about an activity that has become central to our culture.”

Robert MacNeil, former co-host, The MacNeil/Lehrer Report

 

“This humane, intelligent, insightful book is not only useful but also a very good, entertaining read.”

Patrick Watson, chair, CBC

 

“It is a gold mine of lore and method invaluable for anyone who Monday morning has to go out and earn their living talking to strangers.”

The Toronto Star

 

“If you like interesting people and reading about them—as well as if you are a person who interviews or is interviewed—Asking Questions is the book for you.”

The Vancouver Province

 

“To Paul McLaughlin, interviewing is a delicate and complex skill that, at its best, demands constant practice, constant improvement, and constant reappraisal.”

The Ottawa Citizen

 

“In Asking Questions, McLaughlin includes 10 interviews that are models of their kind.”

The Kingston Whig-Standard

 

“This thoughtful and exhaustive book has a lot to tell novices and experienced writers about how to get total strangers to trust you long enough to really say something.”

Caitlin Kelly, The Montreal Gazette

 

“We just don’t listen well, says McLaughlin. The more deeply we listen, the more eloquently people will speak.”

The Edmonton Journal

 

“This book is packed with useful information.”

Canadian Author & Bookman

 

Asking Questions will probably be snapped up by journalism departments as required reading, but it’s entertaining for the rest of us.”

Canadian Business

 

“He probes every interview imaginable—from the daily scrum outside the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, to the one-on-one in-depth talks on television news shows and business magazines.”

The Guelph Mercury

 

“Good practical knowledge for any person involved in interviewing. Moreover, the book [is] really funny in parts.”

Canadian Public Administration

 

“When it comes to interviewing, who among us cannot admit to room for improvement. This book will help us all explore that room. To read Asking Questions is to explore, enjoy and to benefit.”

Barrie Zwicker, publisher, Sources

 

“A neat little book [that] examines the media interview from every imaginable angle.”

Ross McLean, Broadcast Week

 

“Effective interviewing—it’s an art.”

The Oakville Beaver

 

“The strength of the book is the authority derived from more than 100 interviews in the research phase.”

Content: Canada’s National News Magazine

 

 

Additional information

Written by

ISBN

ISBN-13

facebook.com/StoryArtsCentre @storyartscentre instagram.com/storyartscentre youtube.com/storyartscentre