If he were a comic-book villain, Sawatsky would be the Riddler; his office door illustrates his main professional focus.All Things Considered, August 14, 2006 ·
The old saying goes, “There’s no such thing as a stupid question.” But in the opinion of at least one major television network, there is such a thing, and some of the least effective questions are coming from top broadcast journalists.
ESPN’s John Sawatsky is tearing down icons such as Larry King and Mike Wallace as he preaches his guiding principles about how to properly conduct an interview.
ESPN has become a multi-channel sports juggernaut, beaming games, talk shows and news programs into tens of millions of homes. Its nightly newscast, SportsCenter, features spectacular plays, slips and punchlines—but its interviews needed work, according to one executive.
“I felt that we were missing key questions,” says John Walsh, ESPN’s senior vice president and executive editor. “We weren’t getting key moments ... so I thought we needed help.”
Walsh read a journalism review article about a college professor’s technique on the art of the interview. Two years ago, that professor, John Sawatsky, joined ESPN full time.
Now, every single editorial employee at ESPN is expected to attend a three-day seminar, where they encounter a lanky, slightly awkward 58-year-old man with little flash. In his efforts to illustrate what he considers the “seven deadly sins of interviewing,” John Sawatsky methodically eviscerates the nation’s most prominent television journalists.
“I want to change the culture of the journalistic interview,” Sawatsky says. “We interview no better now than we did 30 years ago. In some ways, we interview worse.”
....more at NPR website....How Did Folkenflik Do?
Sawatsky had this to say about David Folkenflik’s interviewing technique on the first day they sat down: “Your questions are good, on the micro-level. There doesn’t seem to be a huge strategy here, in terms of using questions to build off questions to get more, to get me to go further than my normal cautious self would normally go. That part isn’t there—but of course, we haven’t covered that yet in the workshop.” After their second interview (and after the seminar), Sawatsky has revised his opinion. Listen at the end to hear his assessment.
What Makes a Good Interview?
John Sawatsky says this CBC interview is one of the best he's ever encountered.
Veteran journalist Mike Wallace dismisses Sawatsky's criticism. Getty Images
