You ask, we answer: Interviews by IM
Katrina asks, “Recently, an interviewee requested an interview be conducted via instant messenger. Ultimately, we conducted a phone interview, but I was left wondering: How would quotes from an instant messenger interview be attributed? Can they be enclosed in quotation marks or should they be paraphrased? For that matter, what about email interviews? The only clear guidelines I can find are for in person, phone, and book sources.”
It’s funny: I know in the last year or so I’ve read stories where I’ll come across a quote that’s followed by, “… wrote John Smith in an e-mail” or “said John Smith during a phone call from his home in Paris.” Speaking of France, I believe I did a story for the Boston Globe in the last six months where I made a similar disclosure (I interviewed the subject of my story, who lives in Lyon, during a phone call. I know the Times’ folks are a little sensitive about truth in reporting, so that’s probably why I did it).
I’d look to my editor to make the judgment call. Some magazines/newspapers won’t give a fig how the quote was obtained, so you’ll be free to say, “… Smith said” and leave it at that. Personally, that’s what I prefer, but I’m not Boss of the Universe. (Yet. I keep telling my husband it’s next on my list of goals.) As long as the source “said” it, who cares how his words were communicated? I suppose if those words got to you by carrier pigeon, that would be interesting. But I digress, yet again.
What say the rest of you? How do you handle quotes gathered from e-mail, IMing, or carrier pigeons? Tell us below!
Got another writing-related question for us? Send it to questions[at]therenegadewriter[dot]com. [db]
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I’ve done many interviews by phone or email, and never thought about mentioning this in the article. If I understand Katrina’s question, it seems to be about whether one should paraphrase, rather than quote, and to me, that’s unrelated to whether the material was given to me via phone, email (I would consider IM = email), or face-to-face. Maybe I’m missing the point here?
I like the carrier pigeon idea, though! Could be an article there…
This is kind of a non-issue, I think. If it were controversial, I might say that the interview was conducted via IM, in the same way I might mention if someone sent an email or written statement, so that it’s clear there was no back & forth, but that’s how the info was obtained. I have used IM interviews, using statements as quotes. As long as you’re not ambushing the source, I don’t see why that would be a problem. If they’ve misspelled or left out a word, I do clean that up (it is the bane of IM) but otherwise no.
I am old school. I avoid email interviews if I can. Only for people overseas. I would probably not want to do an IM exchange. WebMD does not allow email interviews. They do like reporters to say, “tells WebMD,” to indicate the person talked to the reporter. I think that’s lame, personally. Do people assume otherwise if this is not stated? But in any case, I would not say how the exchange was conducted.
I’ve quoted email interviews (with the permission of the editor) in the past. I think whether you quote or paraphrase depends on how much like speech the email/IM sounds–since phone conversations sound a lot like face-to-face, I don’t consider that as much of a concern. Specifying phone interviews has never occurred to me.
My first email interview was with a subject in the Peace Corps in Albania, so phone wasn’t really an option. But I don’t think you can tell from the article. I’ve had other email interviews that were less successful.
I prefer to conduct interviews by e-mail or IM and treat them as I would a phone interview. Doing business calls over the relay feels awkward and the silence (while operator types back to me) can be hard on both of us (I can hear it sometimes). I’m grateful I have such a technology available to me — but rather go with other tools like e-mail and IM that let me conduct the interview without involving a neutral and unemotional third party.