If you sit down in front of your television to catch up on the news, or if you turn on the radio for the same purpose, you will very likely be treated to a series of stories narrated by an anchorperson or correspondent. However, at least some of what you hear is apt to appear in a different form altogether – not a narrated story, but an interactional encounter between a journalist and one or more newsworthy public figures.

The news interview has come to occupy a prominent place in the landscape of broadcast journalism and political communication. Interviewing has long been a basic journalistic tool – perhaps the most important tool – for gathering information, the raw material that will later be worked up into finished news stories. What is new is its increasing use as a finished news product in its own right. Whether live or taped, in studio or via remote satellite links, as one segment of a news program or the overarching format for the program as a whole – the interview is now a common form in which broadcast news is packaged for public consumption, and hence an alternative to the traditional narrative or story form of news presentation. Although the news story remains important, a significant proportion of news content now consists of a journalist asking questions of politicians, experts, or others who are “in the news.”