Much fuss overnight about how interviews should be conducted. Some journalists say that only a telephone or face-to-face interview is acceptable; some prospective interviewees would rather do things in a way that suits them.

And most of the time, the latter is fine by me. Of course I’d prefer to talk to someone, but that’s not always possible or practical. When I ask someone for an interview, I give them the choice of medium. Phone, Skype, email, IM, anything - whatever suits them.

I consider this the polite thing to do, for one important reason: I’m being paid to interview people and write up what they say. But the interviewee is (most of the time) a very busy person with a life of their own. In agreeing to be interviewed, people are sacrificing their time to talk to me. That time might be otherwise spent earning a living, running a business or playing with their kids. The fact that they should be willing to give up some of it just to answer my stupid questions means they deserve my gratitude and respect. And that’s even if they skirt the questions.

This issue crops up at a very interesting time. This week I am trying to simultaneously interview a group of eight or nine people, on a series of issues. The group and I agreed that some kind of online discussion space was going to be the best way to do it, so we are using a bunch of chat spaces at Campfire. It’s an interesting experiment for me professionally; when it’s all over, I’ll post again on how successful (or otherwise) it was.