Interviewing: The Oregon Method

Interviewing: The Oregon Method is a collection of practical and analytical essays from more than three dozen professional interviewers, scholars, and teachers. This revised and expanded second edition of the popular professional tool features a new foreword and a dozen new chapters designed to aid journalists navigating the contemporary “fake news” and “enemy of the people” media landscape.

The book’s chapters take focused looks at a wide variety of issues, including interview ethics, the sanctity of quotes, interviewing in the virtual world, negotiating identity, and building rapport. The art of the interview has been taught at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication for generations. This foundational text binds those years of experience into a collection of vibrant essays designed to train novices and invigorate old hands.

Interviewing is edited by Peter Laufer, the University of Oregon’s James Wallace Chair Professor of Journalism. As he tells his students, “The interview is intimate, immediate, and often an entrée toward the soul. Conducting interviews can be both great fun and an art form.” This is a primer for the digital age, yet one embracing age-old lessons that make clear the crucial importance of successful interviewing techniques for speaking truth to power along with other productive forms of civic engagement.

Peter Laufer holds the inaugural James Wallace Chair in Journalism at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication where he was awarded the Marshall Prize for teaching innovation. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, and Sonoma County, California, and is the author of over a dozen books on social and political issues including Dreaming in Turtle and Slow News: A Manifesto for the Critical News Consumer (OSU Press).

Interviewing: The Oregon Method includes contributions from faculty and friends of the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Contributors include Pulitzer-prize winning reporter and UO professor Alex Tizon, retired Seattle Times executive editor and UO alumnus Mike Fancher, and the longtime dean of the UO School of Journalism and Communication Tim Gleason.