I just turned off a podcast interview I was listening to after offering the host about 10 minutes of my day (the interview was apparently 30 minutes long). I shut it off because the host broke what I believe to be a very important rule of interviewing: respect. In my opinion, the host made a number of significant mistakes that broke this rule. Here is the summary of the mistakes and how they apply to the ‘trifecta of interview respect‘.

RESPECT FOR YOUR GUEST

Presumably you invited your guest to your show because you want to hear him or her say something and you want to share it with your audience. That makes the interview about your guest, not about you. If you have a book coming out, or an event you’re hosting or participating in, offer those points in your show intro or extro. Don’t sell yourself during the interview (and no, this was not the famous Sarah Lacy incident from SXSW).

RESPECT FOR YOUR LISTENER

Don’t breath on the microphone — even if you have a cold. If you’re using a headset, position the mic away from your face just above your mouth and out of the path of your nostrils. If you discover that you were ‘breathing on your guest’ during the interview, don’t release it. Drop the interview or ask your guest to re-record it.

Also, if you’re doing an interview in a professional and niche space, cut to the chase. Starting the interview with three minutes of joking around on a topic not related to your podcast wastes your audience’s time. You have the opportunity to trim this out before releasing your interview. Take advantage of that time.

RESPECT FOR YOURSELF

Don’t laugh as you ask your questions (at least a majority of them). Be confident in your style and your questions. Laughing out of context diminishes your credibility as a host, interviewer and expert in your field. I also recommend that hosts don’t use ‘we’ and ‘our’ when describing the production team of a podcast that ‘they’ produce on ‘their’ own.

Before I published this post, I listened to two more episodes of the podcast in question and discovered that this is a pattern.

Unsubscribed.