Sky: News Interviewing Skills

The brief from Sky’s Entertainment PR team was to provide a one-day training course to give participants a good grounding in carrying out interviews, and to build skills and confidence.

The course was devised and run by Charmaine Cozier, a senior broadcast journalist with 16 years experience as a reporter, presenter, editor and producer in commercial radio and with the BBC. In addition to teaching short courses at LCC Charmaine has also tutored on the BBC’s Journalism Trainee Scheme.

The training group spanned a broad range of interviewing expertise, so Charmaine successfully planned a day that stayed engaging and relevant for all of them. Crucially the course content credibly acknowledged and reflected the various distinctive elements and challenges which can be found within entertainment and social media journalism.

The day included:

• Breaking down the various elements of preparing for, and doing, an interview
• Identifying and understanding audiences
• Making interviews distinctive using effective research and questioning techniques
• Providing practical advice and solutions for handling challenging interviewees
• Group exercises and discussions

Feedback from Sky:

It was excellent, well worth going to. The instructor created a relaxed environment and made it easy to exchange ideas with everyone in the group. Tips on different ways to research someone and different angles for questions / interviews were really helpful and people are already using them.