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people in all aspects of their lives. With Lafeyette and Pharoah I hung out a lot at their home. With Jim
Reeves, the police lieutenant in The Other Side of the River, I first interviewed him in his office, then
while we drove around the two towns, and finally at his home, where I got to know his family.
How do you typically begin an interview?
I ask my subject to tell me a story. Maybe it’s just an anecdote. Maybe it’s a full-fledged narrative.
Stories are so much a part of who we are, and it’s after people tell me their tales that I begin to poke
and prod. The more specific they get, the more reflective and truthful they become.
For example, the first time I sat down with Jim Reeves for The Other Side of the River, I asked
him, “Tell me about the moment you got the phone call about Eric’s death.” When he answered that
question he started to relive the experience. He told me that he was about to go golfing when the
police chief called and told him that they’d found a body down by the river, and that he ought to get
down there. I walked him through every minute: what he did, what he said, what he thought, what he
was wearing. I want him to go into so much detail that I can close my eyes and see the events, as if I
had been there with him. Now if I had simply said, “Tell me about Eric’s death,” he would have said
something vague like, “Well, it was a terrible thing . . .”
Do you think people’s inclination is to lie?
No. But I do think that—and this is only natural—that people want to present themselves in the best
light possible, so it takes time to sort through people’s stories to find the truth. Sometimes I learn the
truth by doing more interviews, or by just hanging out. But more often than not I learn it by talking to
other people in their lives. Not long ago, I’d met a young couple on Chicago’s West Side for a
documentary I was doing for Frontline. They had just had a child together, and the father told me that
he worked for the phone company. But when I met his uncle a few weeks later, he mentioned in
passing that he was helping his nephew find work. “Find work?” I asked. It turns out that he’d been
laid off about two months before we’d met him. That kind of lying is understandable. Here I am, this
complete stranger walking into this young man’s life, and telling him I’d like him to be a part of a
television documentary, and so he wants the world to see him in the best light possible. It’s when
people lie and then lie again that I get nervous—and have to work doubly hard to verify everything.
And sometimes the fact that people color or hide the truth is very much a part of the story.
How much do you tell the subjects you’re interviewing about what you’ve discovered so far in
your investigation?
I try not to be a messenger between my subjects, or become identified too clearly with one camp or
the other. But it is a delicate balance because talking about your story, trading information, is the way
you get people to open up to you. Sometimes you need and want people’s reactions to what others
have had to say.
What is your policy about information someone tells you either “not for attribution,” “off the
record,” or “on background”?