Making the Most of Minor Interviews

Not so long ago, I sat down with an editor for a job interview. He said he’d always had a question about the education beat: How do you talk to kids?

I launched into a detailed explanation of my own personal policy of not approaching to elementary-age students without parents present, and always getting permission from parents before quoting middle school students (I’ll address high school students in just a minute).

“No,” the editor said. “I mean how do you talk to kids? I would be terrified.”

It’s true. Talking to kids can be tough. If you’re looking for some guidelines to shape your own personal policy, I suggest the rock-solid recommendations put out by the Poynter Institute a few years ago.

Eliciting more than a “yes” or “no” answer from a younger child can take time–and reporters on deadline typically have little of that to spare. There are shortcuts, such as asking the teacher to point out a few of the more talkative kids in the room. But the truth is without patience, you’re more likely to end up with a mostly empty notebook. For some stories, talking to students at school isn’t just convenient, it’s better. For some students, the knowledge that their teacher or principal is nearby makes them comfortable enough to talk to a stranger.

I’ve made it a habit to hand out my business card to the parent volunteers I meet on campus. While I might not need to talk to them for that particular day’s story, I’ve had them call months (and even years) later with valuable tips.

There are plenty of occasions when we want to talk to students, especially older ones, outside the school setting. I’ve typically had good luck finding talkative teens at the mall, particularly the food court. Movie theater parking lots are also fertile territory. When the topic crosses into any kind of controversy–a new survey on teen drug use, military recruiters on campus–I always ask for contact information for family members. Parents have told me they appreciate the heads-up, and only on a handful of occasions have they asked me not to use their child’s name or photo.

I was fortunate to cover a school district–Clark County, the nation’s fifth largest–with well-defined policies for handling access requests. When I visited a school, the teacher would check each student’s file for the requisite media release form. If a parent hadn’t signed off, the students were off limits while on campus. (I only had this backfire one time: We quoted a high school junior and ran her photo for a story on campus dress code violations, and her mother was furious. We later learned the student had apparently forged the signature on the media permission form.)

Does your publication have a set policy on talking to students? How easy is it to get access to them at school? We’ve been talking about school access issues over at EdMedia Commons, and I encourage you to join … both the discussion and EWA!

Have a question, comment or confidential concern for the Educated Reporter? Drop me a line at erichmond@ewa.org. I’m also on Twitter @EWAEmily.