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the fact-checking The New Yorker does. I warn them that after all our interviews are done, I’m going
to call them on the phone, and we could end up spending hours and hours going over details. I tell
them that it will drive them crazy, and might even require an all-nighter. I don’t want to scare them
away, but I want them to know how I work.
Do you tape or take notes?
I take fast, longhand notes.
What kind of notebook do you use?
I use a small (four-by-seven-inch), spiral-bound notebook that I get at the drugstore. I always use
the kind with the spirals on the side. It is just small enough so that I can usually slip it into my shirt
pocket. I am careful to make my note-taking conspicuous, so the person I’m interviewing is sure to
know they are being interviewed. If I’m socializing with someone I’ve just finished interviewing and
they start to relax, have a drink, and tell me more interesting stuff, I pull out my notebook and ask
whether I can write it down. They usually say yes. Or if the circumstances are such that I either don’t
have my notes, or there is some reason I don’t want to pull them out, I am ethically bound to pose
those questions again at a later date, when it is clear that I am interviewing the person. But I never
take notes or interview surreptitiously.
What do you write with?
I use a mechanical drafting pencil. I push the eraser to make the lead come out. I use HB lead, a
medium-hard lead that has a very low friction coefficient, so it moves very fast over the paper. Also,
the mark it makes is rather light, so my interview subject can’t see what I’m writing.
Does taking notes distract the person you’re interviewing?
No. In fact, I’ve found that a notebook disarms someone more than a tape recorder. The presence of
a tape recorder sometimes makes someone feel as if their words might be turned into legal evidence,
whereas a notebook doesn’t seem as threatening.
I have an interviewing trick that uses this misperception to my advantage. When someone says
something really explosive, I put a bored expression on my face and stop writing. I listen to them in a
very noncommittal, distracted way, and make sure not to react to what I’m being told. I do this until
my short-term memory register is beginning to fill up, and then I change the subject and ask a question
I know will elicit a long, boring answer. At that point, I begin writing like mad in my notebook to get
it all down.
Is that why you don’t use a tape recorder?
That, and the fact that this is the way I was trained in McPhee’s class. The disadvantages of a tape
recorder are many. First of all, I’m a mechanical idiot and tape recorders always seem to break on
me. Second, a tape recorder cannot capture a scene. A scene is kinesthetic: it has sound, smell, sight,