By JOSEPH K. STUART
Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Synopsis by KATHERINE NGUYEN
Getting information from someone is a sales position. You have to sell yourself to a person to get the information you desire. And it’s not an easy sell, said FBI agent Joseph Stuart.
Stuart advised that journalists need to figure out a few things before they make the critical approach to their subject:
- What is the task?
- Who is to be interviewed or interrogated?
- What do we know about the interviewee?
- What are the interviewee’s ideology, morals and belief system?
We need to answer these questions to use them to get people to tell us what we want, Stuart says.
Avoid telephone interviews when possible. It makes it possible to pick up on non-verbal communication conveyed in person.
When you meet with the interviewee, it’s possible to figure out telltale characteristics without either of you uttering a single word. Check out their surroundings and figure out whether there’s a common ground between you and the interviewee.
“Finding the common ground means finding easy conversation,” Stuart says. “During the conversation, we can calibrate the individual by how they respond to questions.”
Ask normal, mundane questions in order not to pose a threat to the interviewee. Most importantly, Stuart says, chatting establishes the key tool in a successful interview: establishing rapport.
You use rapport to search for and capitalize on areas of mutual interest, goals, beliefs. It makes the interviewee much more inclined to feel at ease with you and want to talk to you.
“Building a rapport is like building a psychological bridge between you and the interviewee,” Stuart says.
When the interviewee is resistant, don’t get angry, Stuart advises. “Getting angry demonstrates a loss of control of the interview,” he said.
Instead, try planting a suggestion with a person and get them to adopt it as their own. Maybe pick something that makes the interviewee look good.
This technique allows a subject to tell you information they may not have wanted to tell you. If the interviewee is wary or has been burned by other media, try to tell them, “I know that’s what you expect, but you haven’t spoken to me. I want to hear your story. I want to write a competent story.”
Your best bet for obtaining the desired information may be persuasion.
“You could try extortion, blackmail or physical beatings, but that’s sometimes deadly and illegal,” Stuart joked.
“Spend 25 minutes chatting with someone, build that rapport, use it to reduce resistance, then cross that psychological bridge, and grab them back over,” Stuart said.
