Before the Interview: How the Format Began
Launch library · evergreen read
The interview, as a recognisable form, is younger than it feels. For centuries, public figures were written about rather than quoted directly, and the idea of sitting someone down to ask structured questions for publication only became common practice in the nineteenth century.
Early interviewers were often viewed with suspicion, seen as intruding on a person's private thoughts for public consumption. Over time, the format settled into something closer to a craft, with its own conventions: an opening that puts the subject at ease, a middle that probes, and a close that lets them have the last word.
What has not changed is the basic exchange at its heart: one person willing to ask, another willing to answer honestly. Every later variation, from the broadcast interview to the podcast conversation, is really just a new setting for that same old arrangement.
Newspapers and magazines that adopted the interview format found it drew readers in ways that straight reporting rarely did, because it let a public figure's own words carry the story. That appeal has never really faded, which is why the format keeps reappearing in every new medium that comes along.