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Do you have any routines for conducting interviews?
I like to interview in person, and will only do phone or e-mail interviews if I have to. It is
important for me to see someone with my own eyes, to see how he reacts to his surroundings, and
how he reacts to me.
For instance, I recently did an interview in Peru with the manager of a huge lumber mill. The mill
is the town’s leading industry, and this guy was the scion of a famous South American lumbering
family. I interviewed him inside the mill’s walled compound, across a table made of solid mahogany
—a kind of wood he claimed was never milled there. I got to see him put his boots on the gorgeous
table. I saw how his secretary acted toward him. I got a sense of what made him nervous. I’m not just
after the facts, I’m after a character. So the more time I can spend with him in his element, the better.
Do you prepare questions in advance for your interviews?
I do write out questions beforehand. But it’s more like a safety net: I often get completely
sidetracked and never ask them.
I find that savvy interview subjects can be quite attentive to when you’re writing and when you’re
not. I think it is counterproductive to try to hide your notes or questions. Fortunately, my handwriting
is fairly illegible.
Will you send ahead questions if an interviewee requests it? Almost never. I prize informality in my
interviews.
Are there any places you especially like or dislike conducting interviews?
The only bad environment for an interview is a denatured one: a conference room, a bare office. I
was writing a piece about Amadou Diallo’s mother for The New York Times Magazine and had to do
our first interview in the conference room of her PR agent in Washington, D.C. It was awful! And the
PR agent wouldn’t leave us alone.
So much of your reporting is done undercover or while you are on the run—how do you manage
to record what is said and what happens?
With Newjack, I’d come home every night and write six to eight pages of exhaustive, single-spaced
notes—and I wouldn’t even get into much detail! I’d also take notes all day long.
What would you use?
My preferred equipment for participatory projects is a small, three-by-five-inch spiral notebook
that fits in my shirt pocket or jeans pocket. It is unobtrusive and can be produced at a moment’s
notice. I probably filled up a dozen of those during my reporting for Newjack. Fortunately in prison,
officers are told to carry these same notebooks, which they use to take down information about
inmates. I would do that, and then add additional notes for my project. Then, when I got home, I’d