In our latest post on conducting difficult interviews, onMedia’s Lesley Branagan talks to seasoned journalist Aarti Betigeri, who has interviewed some of the most notable names in Asia for outlets such as the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor.

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Journalists talk to a wide range of people, sometimes even those whose actions we find morally reprehensible. But it’s crucial to stay professional during an interview—even with someone you might consider a monster. As part of our series on hardest interviews, onMedia’s Kyle James remembers his struggle to keep personal feelings from derailing a talk with a former official of East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi. 

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In the third part of our series about difficult and challenging interviews, DW Akademie’s Rüdiger Maack tells us how he interviewed a child soldier in Liberia.

General Snow is dancing. Only he can hear the music he is dancing to. For the rest of us it is just the sound of heavy rain dripping on the leaves of the surrounding trees of Clay Junction. General Snow jumps frenetically from one leg to the other, holding his Kalashnikov rifle with both hands over his head.

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As we continue in our series about difficult and challenging interviews, Martin Vogl reflects on conducting an interview that was crucial to his investigation into illegal adoptions in Mali.

I think the hardest interview I have ever done was with the head of an orphanage in Mali I suspected of being involved in illegal adoptions. The interview was tough because there was so much at stake; this interview had the potential to lift the lid on an investigation I had been working on for many months.

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