How to prepare for a sensitive interview

A reporters, documentary maker and journalists guideline to how to prepare for a sensitive interview.

When working on a documentary which involves interviewing someone with a personal story that may affect them (or others), Journalists must be considerate in how they approach the interviewee. Virtually Better is all about investigating how Virtual Reality could become the new therapy for people with mental health problems, so the purpose is to interview someone with a psychological disorder. This also means that the Journalist will ask personal questions about someones mental disorder, how it came about and what treatment/s have worked for that person. For someone, this can be extremely intrusive, so it is important to have that initial conversation outlining those all important questions that can lead you to whether you'll secure that interviewee.

Tomorrow, Virtually Better will be travelling to East London to interview Katy Matilda Neo who has Borderline Personality Disorder and is an advocate for Virtual Reality to be used as a therapy. After using Google's Tilt Brush tool to explain her disorder, she was able to express her individuality and ensure that her mental disorder doesn't fall under the umbrella term for mental health. BPD is serious mental illness that centers on the inability to manage emotions effectively. The disorder occurs in the context of relationships: sometimes all relationships are affected, sometimes only one. Virtually Better wants to find out exactly how Katy felt when she used VR to explain her disorder and in what way she feels it can help her mentality.

Interview Tips

Having a brief understanding of Katy's disorder means that the Journalist can understand that this will be a sensitive interview so precautions must be considered in terms of the personal questions being asked and not over-stepping the line. But, its also important to remember that just because someone has a mental health disorder doesn't identify them as that person and that they are much more than just their illness. This means to never show any kinds of prejudice, discrimination, 'othering' or any sort of remark or body language that would make the interviewee feel uncomfortable. Just because its a 'sensitive' issue and topic doesn't mean the person cant be spoken to in a normal way. There's a difference between understanding and feeling sorry for them.

To make the interviewee feel comfortable, an initial friendly conversation is important so they can trust you and be more inclined to open up to you. For an interesting radio documentary, as much detail and emotion is key so that the listeners can connect to the interviews in the story. If the interviewee hardly opens up and gives one word answers it wont be very good for radio. So ensure they can trust you and you'll be sure to have a great interview. Of course, for an interviewee to give you want you want, you'll have to ask those personal questions that might make you feel uneasy asking. But it's a ruthless world so slowly working your way into that interview ensures better chances of delving into the emotion that you want for the radio. Once they get to that point, you can offer comfort, direct the interview to a different answer you need and this means the interviewee gets a breather from the personal questions and can answer things that are less intrusive and takes that attention away from them.

Throughout an interview, a journalist will intuitively know when to ask the right questions. If they don't give enough of an answer, for example you can simply pause which means the interviewee feels they have to keep talking to fill in that 'awkward silence'. If they're upset about the sensitive subject you can sway the interview a different direction and come back to the question when you feel the interviewee trusts you better. It's not easy getting what you want out of an interview when it's a sensitive issue. In terms of mental health- you cannot prep before in terms of how you'll approach the person because you don't know what they'll be like. They may be very eccentric or closed off. Virtually Better understands that BPD is a serious mental condition but anyone with a mental illness can be at the low end of the scale or high- presumptions cannot be made before an interview. Therefore as a journalist, you'll make that initial judgement call upon meeting the interviewee for the first time.

#Mentalhealth #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #virtualreality #Ethics