Karl Whitney: An interview is intimate and both parties must open up

An interviewer has to reveal something personal if they are to get their subject to reciprocate, to develop an easy rapport as they might with a stranger in a pub

Writer Karl Whitney says an interview shouldn’t be about confirming the interviewers beliefs or preconceptions.

The  other night I was coming from the airport and stopped off in town for a drink with a friend. The weather was autumnal, but warm, and we sat outside the pub, chatting. 

A stranger caught something we were saying that he thought amusing and joined the conversation.