You may have heard the old expression that a good trial attorney never asked a question in an open court that he or she doesn't already know the answer to. Well, the opposite of that is true. When you're interviewing someone in the real world for some act of journalism. You don't want to ask obvious questions where you already know the answer. You want to ask a question where you don't know the answer. And the person you're interviewing does ask real questions.

If it's so obvious that it just seems like you're trying to score some sort of point or make your own point. more tips on asking questions, the fewer Yes, no questions, up down questions, simple one word, possible response questions, the better. You want to ask open ended questions and give the person you're viewing an opportunity to expound on things to illuminate to really cast light on a particular subject. So those are the best types of questions to So now the more insight you have, the more knowledge you have to make them intelligent questions, the better. There are exceptions. Of course, Larry King famously said that he never read the book of any author on his show, because he wanted to ask questions from the viewpoint of the audience in the audience hadn't read the book yet.

Now, whether that was the real reason, or he just didn't want to spend time reading the books, I'll let others decide that, but that is one style. And that helped him that worked for his career, he had a very lengthy career. There are exceptions to the rules I'm giving you. So for example, Bill O'Reilly will have people on his talk show all the time, he'll interview them, but quite often, it'll just beat them up verbally, and they are there to essentially serve as punching bags so that he can expound on his conservative philosophy. Now, that doesn't work for most people. It is a turn off Most people in a lot of different industries or even general consumer news programs, but it works for him.

He's number one in the ratings has been for more than a decade. So I'm not going to tell you you have to ask questions in a certain way. But before you get to that point, I do think you need to learn the basics, the fundamentals of how to do a straightforward interview. And let's not forget bill o'reilly was a very straightforward CBS News man for decades and worked his way up local markets inside edition, and did very traditional news interviews for years and years and years before he ever started his highly politicized and his commentary style of show. So please keep that in mind. So when you're asking questions, realize it's not about putting them on the spot.

It's not about making you look smart. That's another reason why you want to make your question as short as possible, the longer the question you ask, the easier it is for people to get lost, whether it's the person you're interviewing or the audience. And the more likely it is that you're just going to seem like you're not articulate, you can't get to the point or that you're trying to show everybody how smart you are by introducing so much complexity into your questions. So, try to keep your questions short, but not so that they force a short answer back. Do that and you'll be in good shape.