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Interview Coaching
  Question-Asking
  Issue-Analysis

Interview Techniques: Coaching & Workshops

Sharon Ellison - creator of Powerful, Non-Defensive Communication™ - can provide interview coaching for reporters or others in the media, including talk show hosts. In training both individuals and groups of professionals, she can use examples from a participant's own interviews and/or take the text of any sample interview.

Question-Asking

Using actual interview text, Sharon can provide feedback on:

• where questions used failed to get to the heart of a matter,
• how the questions allowed the interviewee to evade an answer or shift topics

Sharon then coaches the interviewer(s) on:

• using specific questions which would be more effective in getting accurate information and holding the interviewee accountable for what he/she says
• using more than a dozen question "formats" which can get a wealth of information quickly

For an example of Sharon's coaching using the text of one short interview, see:

Example from the Bush-Gore Presidential Debate (.pdf)

Issue Analysis:

During the 2000 Presidential Debates, a front page news article said that Bush won points by telling Gore that he was using "fuzzy math," without mentioning that Bush never responded to the issue Gore raised or even naming the issue. The issue was Gore's allegation that Bush's tax refund plan would give the wealthiest one percent of the population more money back on their taxes than would be spent on education, healthcare, prescription drugs and national defense combined. If true, this is an issue that could have a major financial impact on most Americans.

One common form of reporting simply describes which aggressive or defensive "tactics" are being used by politicians (or others) to gain power during a conflict. This type of "analysis" focuses on the conflict between the individuals, treating it like a competitive sport in which the most aggressive person wins. Such reporting does not provide a clear analysis of the issues involved.

The training and coaching Sharon provides can help reporters and other interviewers enhance the power of their analysis. The public is then more likely to get a succinct, clear view of both sides of any issue.

For examples of issue analysis, see:

Defensive Dialogue Analysis: Bush-Gore Presidential Debate (.pdf)
Sample Interview: Fuzzy Zoeler & Tiger Woods (.pdf)

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