# Interviews in Newspapers



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I have a seemingly random, out-of-the-blue question to ask about the formats of interviews in major newspapers (anybody could be the interviewee). In my experience, they always start a little something like this:



The Guardian said:


> Benedict Cumberbatch is talking Edwardian manners, the brutishness of croquet and a million other things that segue rapidly into each other while my brain struggles feebly to keep up. He is making me a cup of Earl Grey, and a single question - shall we share a teabag? - has triggered this rush of inspiration, from tea ceremonies to post-colonial theory. It's fair to say that Cumberbatch is both a thinker and a talker.


Of course, this present-tense, irrelevant nonsense (usually even more irrelevant, like the shade of blue of the interviewee's shirt, and filled with the most ridiculous 'observations' that can only make the writer sound stuck-up) continues for a few more paragraphs, annoying the hell out of me while I think: "just get to the f**king interview!!!" I know, I'm pathetic and easily annoyed, but has it always been like this, or is it a recent style-fad?

P.S. I ask you, a classical music forum of all people, because I have no friends.


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

Damn journalists think they're proper authors now do they?

I was just reading Herbert Matthews' 1957 interview with Fidel Castro which includes this passage: 'Castro is a great talker. His brown eyes flash; his intense face is pushed close to the listener and the whispering voice, as in a stage play lends a vivid sense of drama'. Nowhere near as bad as your example but obviously its roots lie far in the past.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Those irrelevant biscuits are _mood setters;_ it's a Brit thing. Sort of like tea and crumpets before the rugby match.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Those irrelevant biscuits are _mood setters;_ it's a Brit thing. Sort of like tea and crumpets before the rugby match.


I thought it might be a plague particular to my awful country. I wouldn't mind a mood-setter if it wasn't so appallingly written!


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Well, it depends on the quality of the publication.
If you get something like The New Yorker, interviews are well written.
If you get something like People, it's a load of crap. 
I seem to believe that major American newspapers like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are generally very well written, including their interview parts.


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

After all, The NYT did publish a style book for writers


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