When was the last time you really listened to someone?
This is a key question New York Times contributor Kate Murphy asks in her book “You're Not Listening,” which strives to understand why we struggle to listen—and why it matters. Considering the global epidemic of not listening (both online and off) Murphy’s question is worth contemplating.
“I saw a crying need to write this book,” Murphy explained in an article published in the Guardian just after her book was published, in 2020. “Everyone is so intent on expressing their own opinion, or they’re so distracted by technology or by their own thoughts, that it’s making us isolated, misinformed and intolerant."
I picked up Murphy’s book because I am currently teaching students at the University of Groningen interviewing techniques for feature writing, which prompts me to reconsider my own skills. Any journalist will tell you that interviewing lies is at heart of journalism because that’s how we discover information, context and content, and those small, seemingly insignificant details that bring stories alive.
I tell students that just because they have spent a lifetime having conversations doesn’t mean they know how to listen. It takes practice. The same goes for journalists, only we learn how to listen on the job. making countless mistakes. As a rookie reporter, I remember being stumped by politicians and policy wonks, asking mediocre questions that got nowhere fast, facing awkward silences, and tuning out during tedious interviews. Worse was the embarrassment of getting it plain wrong in plain daylight.
One of the first things I teach students is that to interview well, you have to be curious—from there, everything follows. I approach interviewing as a form of accelerated intimacy, one which depends on creating a genuine connection. Both interviewer (listener) and interviewee (speaker) want to feel comfortable, knowing that this exchange is worth their time and effort. Forging that connection is straight-forward: it’s about being curious, alert, interested, and giving lots of eye contact. It’s also about putting aside our tendency to interpret what someone is saying and follow the conversation wherever it leads.
This is much harder than it sounds. Newbie journalists often follow their interview script slavishly, interrupting with leading questions, commenting and filling the silences, missing the essence of an interview. Because they are inexperienced, they tend to be more transactional, extracting useful information then quickly moving on. But good interviewing or listening is about actively holding space for someone else. Murphy puts it this way—when we stop worrying about what to say next and just listen, it frees up our minds to notice other things. Things like body language, personal or cultural cues, intangible qualities like intention; it kicks our other senses, also used to communicate, into high gear, allowing us to gather more of the subtext.
In her book, Murphy keeps returning to the point that people just want to be heard. Unfortunately, most of us preach, judge, attempt to persuade or condemn the speaker, or we succumb to our ego’s continual need to state its preferences, making us fail to connect. Instead, Murphy suggests we listen to learn, listening as if we're an empty vessel, filled with another's words. This is not just Pollyannaish thinking, scientific data proves that people are happier and healthier when they feel understood. So, it’s about quieting the mind in order to focus our ears on the speaker.
In class, my students brought up an interesting point about dealing with sensitive or controversial topics, particularly interviewing someone they don’t like. Several female students asked about interviewing, say, a well-known misogynist, should you fake being interested? My immediate answer was a big NO. You cannot connect by being fake; you always need to consider your goal in interviewing—if it’s to explore how someone thinks, you got to stay curious.
Interestingly, Murphy mentions a study where neuroscientists at USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute put volunteers in an MRI scanner and then made highly charged statements. What they found was that whenever someone’s beliefs are being challenged, their brain lights up the same way as if they’re being chased by a bear! Our natural fight-or-flight, adrenaline surge makes it challenging to step back. But if a journalist’s goal is listening to learn, it demands being open-minded enough to explore what someone else thinks. Of course, interviewees that bully, threaten and insult journalists don’t deserve their ear, not for long. However, journalists are not supposed to badgering prosecutors or enraged activists, their role is to dig for information and relay it to the public.
A last word, listening well as a journalist means being active, engaged, patient and calm, and showing the listener that you care enough to want to know. It’s a little known fact but air traffic controllers are limited to 1.5 to 2 hour shifts, then they’re forced to go on break. Yes, they listen that closely (of course, they’re paid), and we can take a cue from them. Done right, it’s exhausting.
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