What is the benefit that your reader (viewer, listener) will get from the interview? What is new, surprising, helpful, useful or particularly entertaining? Avoid the usual standard questions in clichéd formulations. Think not only about what you really want to learn from the interviewee, but above all about what your target group is particularly interested in. If you don't manage to do this, the interview may miss its goals in terms of your own communication strategy. The content traffic light can help you a lot with this.
4. Prepare thoroughly.
Nothing that you can research yourself belongs in an interview question. For example, don't ask a celebrity about key facts about their life that you could have read on Wikipedia or their own website. Get information about the person you're talking to. Read texts by or about them. Watch videos and get an idea of their social media presence.
The better prepared you are, the more precise your questions will be and the less likely you are to embarrass yourself with a naive question. Of course, you can also ask your counterpart at the end what personal and professional information, web links or other information they would like to have in the finished piece.
5. Clarify organizational matters beforehand.
Short biography and photo of the interviewee, timetable for approval: Make a forex data list of what you need to consider beforehand and sort it out quickly in one go. It's best to draft a briefing for interviews and provide it straight away. But please keep it short and simple. That way you don't have to chase after a picture afterwards, and your interviewer knows in advance when you need their feedback on approval, for example.
6. Forget the order and shorten boldly.
A written interview does not have to follow the exact order of the questions in the conversation. The internal dramaturgy, the common thread, is much more important. Be bold and delete anything that is irrelevant and does not contribute to gaining knowledge. The success of an interview depends on the person asking the questions, but the ability of the interviewees to get to the point varies greatly, even when they are very sure of the content.
7. Cut along.
If you conduct the interview orally, you should always record it. Interviews depend on the authentic wording of the interviewee. Unless you happen to have an absolute memory, you can assume that you will never be able to remember the exact wording again. You may even forget important parts, or you may find that you are missing a crucial transition.
Of course, you have to ask your interviewer at the beginning whether they agree to the recording. Many interviewers still take notes. (I do too, by the way.) You don't necessarily need special software or equipment for this. After I have received permission, I record interviews with the iPhone or Skype recorder. As soon as the recording starts, I ask my interviewer to give their consent again.