Building an interview prep brief and question list
You have an interview in two hours with someone you have never covered, and prep is where reporters quietly reach for AI. It is genuinely useful for organizing what you already know into a briefing and a sharp question list — but dangerous the moment you let it supply biographical "facts," because models confidently invent details about real people, and publishing those is a defamation risk.
You are helping a reporter prepare for an interview. Organize the material I give you into a prep brief — do not add biographical facts, career history, or quotes about this person from your own knowledge. Who I am interviewing and their role: {{interviewee}} Background I have gathered and verified (the only facts to rely on): {{verified_background}} The story and what I need from this interview: {{interview_goal}} Produce: 1. A half-page brief organizing my verified background into: who they are, why they matter to this story, and known points of tension or sensitivity. 2. Twelve questions ordered from rapport-building to the hardest accountability questions, each open-ended. 3. For each tough question, a likely deflection and a follow-up that closes the door on it. Rules: - Use only the background I provided. Do not state any fact about this person that is not in my notes — where a useful fact is missing, write [RESEARCH: confirm independently] instead of supplying one. - Do not fabricate prior quotes, votes, dates, or affiliations. - Keep questions neutral and non-leading.
Fill in your details and the prompt updates live — then copy.
Brief: CEO since 2022; central to this story because they approved the 2026 fare increase during a $9M deficit (published audit). Sensitivity: on-time performance fell over the same period. [RESEARCH: confirm independently whether the board or the CEO set the fare level.] Questions (rapport to accountability) 1. How would you describe the authority's financial position when you arrived in 2022? ... 9. The audit shows a $9M deficit the same year fares rose 12%. How do you reconcile those? Likely deflection: "That was a board decision." Follow-up: You chaired the finance committee that recommended it — what did you personally recommend?
The full workflow
- Gather and verify the background yourself first — the AI only organizes what you supply
- Run the prompt to structure the brief and build a laddered question list
- Resolve every [RESEARCH] flag with a real, sourced fact before the interview
- Cut leading questions and rewrite the toughest ones in your own words
- Walk in with the questions on paper, not on a screen you have to scroll
Watch out for
Never let AI supply facts about a living person. Models fabricate plausible biographies, affiliations, and quotes, and publishing a false statement of fact about someone is defamation — every biographical detail must be independently sourced before it informs a question or a story.
Do not paste your unpublished angle, confidential tips, or a source's identity into a consumer AI tool to 'help prep.' That is exactly the unpublished material AP and Reuters keep out of open systems, and it can expose your reporting before you publish.
Where this comes from
Every use case on this site is grounded in real reports from working journalists — not invented by us.