Interviewing

Can an article exist without an interview? The answer: No.  Plain and simple.  Journalists get a large majority of their articles from the interview.  An article adorned with information dense quotes will be more interesting and relevant to the audience.  Preparing for the interview can be equally or more important than the interview itself.  Research is an essential pre-interviewing step.  By researching, a journalist can come up with relevant questions.  A teacher once recommended to come up with a total of 50 questions; because there's nothing more embarrassing than a 30 second pause when the journalist tries to think of a question he or she didn't come up with.  Writing questions before hand is important because it means the conversation will constantly be moving and engaging.  The person being interviewed is more likely to open up if the journalist communicates through words, actions and/or gestures that he or she is important.  Interviewing is what the entire article is, so it's important to do a good job and ask thoughtful questions.