Interview Techniques

Interviewing 

You will need to interview people in your search for facts. Never interview the person at the centre of the investigation first. Always start at the edge and work your way towards the middle. You must not warn the person under investigation too soon. Also, you need to gather as many facts as possible before you put your questions to the person at the center. 

For example, you may be investigating a rumour that Mr X, the manager of the city rubbish dump, has accepted bribes to allow companies to dump dangerous waste illegally. Start by interviewing drivers of garbage trucks who use the dump, then the managers of their companies and finally, if you have enough information by then, question Mr X himself. Start with those people who are innocent or just on the edge of the corruption (because they will speak most freely), before digging deeper into the center of the matter. 

Make notes 

Make lots and lots of notes. Write down everything, however unimportant it may seem at the time.  

If you cannot write your notes immediately, write them as soon as possible. For example, if you are having a private conversation with a contact in a club, he may not want other people to see you making notes like a reporter. Make your notes as soon as you get somewhere private, like your car or the toilet! 

Keep all your notes in order. It is good practice in a big and lengthy investigation to set up a filing system for notes, reports and other documents. This will keep them in order and separate from any other stories you might be working on at the same time. 

Keep all your notes, tapes and documents in a safe place, just in case there is a fire or the office is burgled by the people you are investigating or raided by the police. In an important investigation, make copies of all material and take them home or leave them with a trusted friend, a lawyer or in a bank. You cannot resist the police if they come with a warrant to take material from your office, but you do not need offer them information on where you keep any other copies of your notes. 

Protecting documents 

Your contacts or anonymous people may give you confidential documents exposing some corruption, such as a letter from Mr X to the rubbish companies asking for bribes (though he might not use that word). Or it could be a confidential report that a new public building is about to fall down, something the government wants to keep secret. 

We say that such documents have been "leaked" - like water through a hole in a pipe. You must be especially careful in protecting such leaked documents, because the legal owners of them (such as Mr X or the government) could get a court order forcing you to give them back. If they have a code on them somewhere which can identify that particular copy, they might be able to trace your source who leaked that copy. One tip is to photocopy the document then either destroy the original or hand it back to your source to put back in the proper place. Then you cannot be accused of possessing stolen goods. Now use scissors to cut out any parts of your photocopy which might give clues to who sent it to you. If the police do seize your documents, they may not be able to trace who sent it.