Connecting with your interview subject

Bridget Meade of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada-Reno interviewed business journalism professor Alan Deutschman about his experiences covering technology for Fortune, GQ and Vanity Fair.

Meade writes, “Each interview required a different set of skills. For example, when he interviewed Gates, Deutschman had a difficult time getting him to talk openly.

“‘Gates seemed very bored and distracted,’ Deutschman said. ‘He assumes you’re not going to be very smart and ask him mainstream questions.’

“It wasn’t until Deutschman mentioned that he was researching renowned physicist Richard Feynman that the interview with Gates began to turn around. Gates is a fan of Feynman’s work and deemed Deutschman worthy after that. Even so, when one of Deutschman’s colleagues wrote an article about Microsoft that ticked Gates off a few years later, Gates saw him at a conference and called him out on it.

“‘It turned into a two hour discussion in front of a crowd,’ Deutschman said, laughing.

“When Deutschman started his career in journalism, he was interested in writing about art, culture and politics. Then he interned at the Wall Street Journal and after that, subsequent publications assigned him business stories.”

Read more here.