Q&A on The Guardian

The Guardain is one of the better models of a paper that has effectively transitioned to the web. They are big fans of Q&A and use it in many ways. In their Life and Style Series they interview a wide variety of famous people asking them the same questions: “What is your greatest fear”; “What is your earliest memory”.

In other section they provide what is basically a primer or FAQ about current subjects: What is carbon capure and storage and how does it work. It’s worth having a look at their section on the envriroment called: Q&A The Issue Explained.

Then there is the expert Q&A where readers get to ask questions. You can see this in their Money section: called Our Experts.

I think that is the most effective and varied use of Q&A I have seen on a single site. If that weren’t enough, one of my favorite bloggers, Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine also writes a regular column for the Guardian.

Talk to the newsroom

The New York Times provides a great example of the use of online Q&A with their staff in their Talk to the Newsroom section. Readers are given the opportunity to ask a given staff member questions over a period of a few days and the staff member answers the questions as they come in (more or less).

It’s a good example of Newpapers/website editors interacting directly with their readership which in turn furthers the goal of transparency. The New York Times continues to try out new things and can be more cutting edge than many of their more recent web-only competition.

Have you seen other examples of this? Let me know in the comments.

Voice: Online Interviewing and Q&A Tips

Interviewing someone online is different from doing it on the phone or face-to-face. There are advantages and disadvantages – and often one is not a good substitute for the other. One of the obvious advatages of online interviewing is that not everyone has to be available at the same time – it’s asychnronous – you do it when you want to. One of the oft-quoted disadvantages is that there is a loss of the interviewees personality and voice.

The truth is that everyone has a voice when they are writing, it’s not the same as their spoken voice and can probably vary more than their spoken voice typically does. The danger with online interviewing is that the person being interviewed can often come off too formal. But this is all too often because the person doing the interviewing is writing too formally.

Tip: The interviewee will typically mirror the style and tone of the interviewer whether in person or online. If you want informal answers ask informal questions and convey informality in your writing style. Don’t write as if you were editing a Wikipedia article, write as if you were doing a blog post.

Example:

Formal Style:

Do you think we are in a global financial crisis based on the bankruptcy of Lehman, the firesale of Merrill and the rescus of AIG?

Informal Style:

Are we going to hell in a financial handbasket? I mean… Lehman, Merrill, AIG? What’s next?

I imagine these would be answered quite differently by the same. Obviously your language has to be consistent with and respectful of the person you are interviewing, but there is still a tremendous amount of room for leeway here – just as there would be if you were on the phone.

If you have tips and or questions about online interviewing for the YouSaidIt community you can go to the Interview Tips community Q&A at YouSaidIt.

We’re LIVE on KUOW.ORG

All this week KUOW (Seattle’s largest NPR station) is running a farm series called “Sweet Earth”. In their words:

What does it take to eat locally in the Central Puget Sound region? KUOW reporters find out from the people who grow our food: “Sweet Earth: Lessons From the Land.”

KUOW will be doing two things:

1. Interview the KUOW Community

They will be asking the community to answer questions about their priorties when it comes to local and organic food. What’s most important? How much are they willing to pay? etc.

2. Farmer Interviews

They will be doing online interviews with farmers in conjunction with the series and allow the audience to ask questions of the farmers directly.

We are really delighted that KUOW us using YouSaidIt. Their audience is certainly the best and the brightest.

Let us know what you think by commenting here or going to YouSaidIt.com.