Real Communication An Introduction

Interviews can be scary. Sitting down to speak with someone you don’t

know—be it a potential employer, a new doctor, a college admissions officer, or

a journalist—requires a certain amount of preparation and courage, especially

when the person who’ll be interviewing isn’t even a person at all. That’s what

guests face when they agree to an interview on Comedy Central’s The Colbert

Report (at least until 2015, when the show will end due to its host’s jump to

the Late Show). Host Stephen Colbert is not a real journalist—he’s a character

invented and brought to life by the actor and comedian with whom he shares a

face and a name. Colbert the character prides himself in being a bully, especially

in interviews, where, as one critic explains, he “poses either ridiculous questions

on serious topics or earnest questions on ludicrous ones” (Patterson, 2006). In

a Colbert Report interview, Colbert always emerges victorious: “I am the only

host in America who has never lost an interview. I am 847–and–0, all knock-

outs” (The Colbert Report, 2011).

Such interviews can be especially perilous for politicians—especially for

those who agree to sit down with Colbert for his famous “Better Know a Dis-

trict” series. Unlike the show’s studio interviews, in which Colbert speaks with

authors, academics, celebrities, and government leaders in real time, in front of

a live audience, the “Better Know...” series is pretaped, usually on location, and

each five-minute comedy segment is edited down from a much longer discussion

(some subjects report that the full interviews can take as long as ninety minutes)

(Ross, 2007). The final product usually portrays Colbert as the hardball ques-

tioner, unconcerned with any answers the interviewee might provide. When he

sat down with Seattle’s Jim McDermott, for example, he asked the psychiatrist-

turned-congressman, “Do you enjoy working with the mentally disturbed, or

would you rather be a psychiatrist?” His joke delivered, Colbert moved on before

giving McDermott a chance to answer (The Colbert Report, 2013).

appendix

Competent

Interviewing

The Nature of

Interviews

Types of Interviews

The Format of an

Interview

Understanding Roles

and Responsibilities

in Interviews

The Job Interview

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