I’m gonna put it out there right now: Reporters would be incredible at speed dating.
Speed dating, for those who are giving me blank looks right now, is kind of like a miniature dating tournament. You have two groups of singles – usually, but not always, men and women. One group sits, the other group circulates amongst those sitting. You get five minutes to sit down at a table and make yourself seem interesting enough that the person across from you will check off your name on the little sheet of paper that each speed dater has. Then at the end of five minutes, you move on to give the next lucky person the condensed version of your life story.
Afterwards, the organizers sit down and look through all the little pieces of paper. If two people have checked each other, the organizers will hook them up. Then, hey, you’re on your own, kid.
This dating strategy is perfect for reporters precisely because we make a living off of asking other people questions.
See, journalism is all about extracting a maximum amount of information from another person in a minimum amount of time.
When you’re on a beat and you have to follow a certain group of people for a certain stipulated amount of time, you have to extract said information in a way that allows you to build a rapport with your subjects, to make them comfortable enough with you that they will agree to a second interview if need be.
And when you’ve got a deadline and the wrath of an editor breathing down your back, you figure out pretty damn quickly just what questions engage people and what questions give you overused, one word responses.
This is especially true in sports journalism. I learned pretty early in my career that you only get past the generic “we gave 110 percent” sort of answer if you learn to ask questions that probe below the surface. Instead of asking why an athlete played a shitty game, you ask, “What do you think you could have done better?”
Beyond that, reporters are also trained to find links and patterns in the answers that interview subjects give us, and to sift through all this stuff to find the one strand of information that will help you identify with the person whose life story you’re trying to extract in about, oh, I don’t know, 15 minutes?
To that end, it always helps if you’re a multi-dimensional individual who knows a little bit about everything (as opposed to a specialist who knows everything about one thing), because that gives you a lot more leeway when you’re trying to identify that one strand of commonality that will tie you to the person you’re trying to interview.
Oh, you’re a med student? Great, I always wondered how accurate all the medical details on “Grey’s Anatomy” were. Or hey, you’ve studied abroad in Germany? I’ve always wanted to see the Brandenburg Gate close up. Oh, you own a Chihuahua á la Paris Hilton? Can I see it up close? I always wondered how those damn dogs fit in those tiny girlie purses that movie stars tote around.
From a reporter’s standpoint, common ground is often the key to unlocking your subject’s (or in this case, your potential date’s) defenses and making them see you as a person instead of an automaton just going through the motions the way a bartender might hand you a drink.
That technique translates perfectly into speed dating because being able to quickly identify what you have in common with someone else will put you one step above the next automaton who’ll slide into your seat at the end of five minutes and ask the same stock questions as the next automaton after that: What’s your favorite color? What’s your idea of a perfect date? What do you do for a living?…Yadda yadda yadda.
To take it one step further, reporters are also trained to read body language. We know what makes you uncomfortable, when we should shut up and stop talking, when we should encourage you to keep talking, and best of all, when you’re lying, all of which are helpful techniques when you’re trying to size up the person in front of you in five minutes and make a good impression while doing it.
So will someone please explain to me how these basic mechanics differ from speed dating? Because the way I see it, the two are pretty much one and the same.
Maybe that’s why newsrooms have traditionally been very prone to incest. People in the newsroom date each other. That’s just the way it works. We’re just too damn good at extracting information and identifying commonalties to avoid practicing our techniques on the people most easily available: fellow reporters (and editors, and photographers, and designers, and…you get the picture.)
Now what I really want to see is a speed dating session for reporters only. Let’s see who outwits whom when we all gather in a room and use the same techniques on each other. I know what you’re thinking, I know how you’re thinking it, and I know why you’re thinking it, and hey, guess what, you know exactly the same information about me! That’s a big, tangled clusterf#@k just waiting to happen.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. Now take the trade secrets I’ve revealed and unleash them upon the world.
Or try them on me if you’d like. I’m always up for a challenge.
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