What makes an authentic story?
At Arete, our expertise lies in collecting and crafting narratives for charities, UN bodies, and foundations, through photography, videography, and journalism. We believe that authenticity should be at the heart of storytelling. This means giving a voice to the people we meet and letting them tell their own stories — in their own words.
Interviews are integral to this. Alongside visual content, which helps to inspire empathy, interviews bring the story back to the people at the heart of a story. There is little that can communicate a situation like the words of someone living through it, and a well-conducted interview has the power to gain the attention and support of people around the world.
Conducting interviews in humanitarian situations presents numerous challenges. The individuals we work with are often in the midst of crises and have experienced traumatic events, making it essential to establish a strong rapport.
Access is also a challenge, and with very limited time in which to delve into subjects that can be complex and difficult to explore, our objective is to collect the most authentic, impactful stories; conducting ourselves with cultural and emotional sensitivity.
Our network of storytellers includes award-winning journalists from around the world. Each has their own unique approach, including ways they create a trusting space and maintain authenticity throughout the process — from the interview itself, through to the write up, all the way through to publishing.
In this month’s blog, we hear how two of them make the most of an interview:
Arete Writer and Video Editor, Helena Lambert is Deputy Content Editor of ITN and a field producer for ITV News. She has also been a reporter for the Telegraph and Sky News.
Arete Journalist, Matthew Green is Global Investigations Editor at DeSmog, co-host of the Climate Consciousness Summit, and creator of the Resonant World newsletter on integrating collective trauma. As a freelance journalist, he has contributed to the Financial Times, the Guardian, the Observer and Reuters.
Preparation and Approach
Helena:
“Preparation for an interview is always going to be guided by how much time you have to prepare. You may have weeks or days. You may have hours or minutes. In any case, you’ve got to get to grips with the key elements of the story. What’s the issue? Why has this happened? Who am I speaking to? In what way are they involved or affected by whatever has happened? As the interview progresses, you’ll glean a lot more detail, and this will allow you to delve a little deeper.”
Matthew:
“It is obviously important to have an understanding of who the interviewee is, and some preparation is required. But the most important element of any interview is to listen to what is being said in the moment.”
Creating Effective Questions
Helena:
“I list the key points that I want to cover within the interview. These might be facts, statistics, or assumptions that I want to delve into. I generally don’t write any questions word-for-word — I try to let the conversation flow naturally. The next question should follow on from what’s just been said. You never quite know where the conversation will take you, it might open the door to a question you’d not considered…
…keep checking those key points, and make sure you get all those elements covered. There’s nothing more frustrating than walking away from an interview and thinking ‘I didn’t ask about X!’ But there’s also nothing more annoying than an interviewer who doesn’t listen to the answers given because they’re just rattling through a list of pre-planned questions without considering what’s being said…
…Regarding the number of questions, you need to consider how the interview will be used — is it for a news report, documentary, campaign or social media video? The medium dictates the style.”
Matthew:
“It’s important to ensure the interview covers the central challenge that the interviewee is facing, and devotes enough time to understanding that challenge — and possible responses — as thoroughly as possible.”
Building Trust
Helena:
“Don’t be over the top. Be genuine. Empathise with whoever you’re talking to. Maintain eye contact but act naturally. Most importantly, listen and keep your mouth closed…
…If it’s a sensitive subject area try not to interrupt someone mid-sentence. Allow for pauses. When you keep quiet and let people speak freely, they say the most interesting things. People get nervous being interviewed, especially when on-camera, so giving them space to think and speak freely will make them more comfortable.”
Matthew:
“When you hold a genuine curiosity about another person’s experience and perspective, they can sense that, and trust unfolds naturally from there.”
Making Interviewees Comfortable
Helena:
“You also need to think about where the interview is taking place. What’s the environment like? Sticking TV cameras in someone’s face or having harsh studio lighting isn’t going to relax them…
…When I’ve arranged interviews with someone who needs to speak anonymously and who doesn’t want anyone knowing they’ve spoken to the press, I’ve booked rooms in hotels or office spaces. It can be important to meet in an area where they’re sure no one will recognise them.”
Matthew:
“It can help to allow longer pauses between answers than you would in a normal conversation. Often this pause can serve as an invitation for the interviewee to go into more depth than they might have done had you rushed in with a follow-up question.”
Structuring the Interview
Matthew:
“I would normally start with less contentious questions to establish the basic facts of the story, before moving on to potentially more challenging topics.”
Making the Most of Time
Helena:
“Using the time you have to get to know someone, or getting to grips with an issue, or spending time in the community is hugely valuable.”
Matthew:
“Allow them to guide you to the most important information by asking questions like: ‘What is the most important thing I need to know about your experience?’ or similar formulations.”
Balancing Depth and Rapport
Helena:
“There’s always going to be a thin line between what you, as a journalist, need or want someone to say, and what they themselves are prepared to say. You might even explain to the interviewee why it’s important for them to tell you something, perhaps it’s in the public interest. Perhaps it will help expose wrongdoing. But pushing too hard and overstepping the mark will only make you lose the trust you have built up. It may make them less likely to speak to you again. You need to use your intuition and find that thin line. Or perhaps you could just ask the question in a different way, from a different angle or perspective.”
Matthew:
“People are generally happy when somebody takes a sincere interest in their experience, and so the act of delving deep can by itself help to deepen the rapport.”
Helping Interviewees Tell Their Stories
Matthew:
“One good technique is to reflect back what you have heard, saying something like: ‘If I’ve understood you correctly, then you felt X when Y happened,’ or some similar form of reflective listening. This gives the interviewee an opportunity to feed back to ensure you have understood their position as precisely as possible.”
Helena:
“Case studies are so important within journalism, documentary and communications. Within humanitarian communications it’s the human element that we have to capture. It’s no good talking about facts and figures. People are not statistics. It’s all very well to say 10,000 children have been killed during a war. But when there are conflicts and famine taking place all over the world that number can begin to sound meaningless. It’s seeing those children, hearing the grief of their mothers and beginning to understand the pain and emotion each family is facing. That’s what makes it meaningful. It can of course be hard to watch, but you have to show the human cost of conflict, famine or natural disaster. Otherwise, it can be ignored…
…For anyone spending much time on X (Twitter) or Instagram, the war in Gaza has provided incredibly shocking imagery. Images have shocked people who had not been paying attention. And those people took to social media, albeit briefly, to voice their horror at such a brutal war. At Arete, we have to be very careful about the pictures we show and there are strict guidelines on this. But the world takes note of real human stories…
…Humanitarian communications is all about raising awareness. Arete’s clients might be UN bodies, NGOs or charities. All do amazing work across the world and provide a valuable service to humanity. But there are costs. Very often Arete is producing content for a campaign that will help secure funding. This funding may come from the public, from governments, corporate donors or philanthropists. Being able to explain an issue through those human stories, or case studies, will help that campaign get attention.”
Authority & Impact
Matthew:
“Devoting enough time to establishing a precise sequence of events, backed up by relevant dates and other facts, helps to ensure the interview has enough weight to avoid sounding too vague or impressionistic.”
Helena:
“To make sure any story is taken seriously it needs to be told in an objective a way as possible. You need to put someone’s personal story into wider context and explain how this issue affects more than just one person.”
Ensuring Authenticity in the Final Write Up
Helena:
“This is always going to be a challenge in some way. Especially with short-form news pieces. In the process of deciding which soundbites will make the final edit you have to be quite brutal about what gets cut. Similarly, if you’re writing a newspaper article, you’re likely to have a very tight word count. It is up to us as journalists or creatives to decide what stays and what goes. We all have different opinions, and these choices are subjective. But with experience you get better at knowing what will work and what your editor or client will like…
…This editing process is never easy and is arguably just as important as the initial stages. Everyone has their own methods. But it’s all about finding the narrative and cutting out distractive elements.”
Matthew:
“The most important aspect of the interview is the commitment to deep listening. That creates a field of trust that in turn gives rise to an accurate reflection of the interviewee’s experience. It all rests on the listening…
…Then the key is to choose the quotes that give the richest representation of the interviewee’s turn of phrase.”
Amplifying The Story
Interviews conducted by Arete storytellers are used in a wide range of media, tailored to create the most engaging and impactful stories.
For example, Arete filmmakers were asked to help tell Frederique’s story, when working with War Child in the Central African Republic:
Arete was asked to help tell Gloria’s story when working with the World Food Programme in Uganda:
Photographs and interview extracts collected by Arete were used in a Guardian feature about the practice of forced sex and abduction as an accepted route to marriage in Karamoja, Uganda. Read it here.
