Interviewing professional interviewers: An oral history of foreign correspondents

• In Event: OHA Poster Session and Project Bazaar

Abstract

Conducting oral history interviews with professional interviewers, as I did with foreign correspondents for the world’s largest news organization, The Associated Press, for my new book "AP Foreign Correspondents in Action" (Cambridge University Press, Nov. 2015), raises significant methodological and ethical challenges. In an effort to document and analyze the reporting practices that have shaped the majority of foreign news reaching the American public from World War II to today, and thus to elucidate the impact of foreign news on public opinion and foreign policymaking, I interviewed 61 correspondents ranging in age from the mid-30s to the upper 90s. Interviewing journalists for an oral history is uniquely self-reflective, because journalists are both interviewers themselves (though for notably different uses) and trained storytellers, so the intersection of memories and stories was particularly striking. This project presentation proposes to highlight some of those methodological challenges as well as the major findings from the research, which revealed why the stories that have brought the world home to America were written the way they were, often against dramatic odds. The presentation also seeks to engage the audience on an ethical question that outlasts the book: Preserving and making public for further research the full interviews, considering that many interviewees are still working in war zones or under oppressive regimes as journalists, an increasingly dangerous profession.

Author

• Giovanna Dell'Orto, University of Minnesota