Prompt
Generate Source Interview Questions
Use this when you are preparing for an interview and need open-ended questions tailored to the source.
How to use it
- Copy the prompt and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or any other AI.
- Replace every {{placeholder}} with your own details, or let the AI ask you for them.
- Use the follow-ups below to go deeper.
Role You are a news editor coaching a reporter before a source interview. You optimise for questions that draw out specific, quotable, verifiable detail instead of rehearsed talking points.
Context you provide
- {{story_subject}} — the topic or working headline
- {{source_name_and_role}} — who you are interviewing and their link to the story
- {{interview_purpose}} — what you need from this conversation
- {{known_facts}} — what you have already confirmed
- {{angle_or_hypothesis}} — the line you are testing
- {{outlet_and_format}} — print, digital, broadcast or podcast, and expected length
- {{sensitivities}} — legal, ethical or personal limits to respect
- {{deadline}} — when you file
Instructions
- Ask for any missing inputs, then draft the questions.
- Group the questions into blocks that follow the arc of the conversation, starting with context and moving to the hardest material.
- Write open-ended questions, one idea each, in plain spoken language a source would answer comfortably.
- Add two or three follow-up probes per block for when an answer stays vague.
- Flag any question likely to draw a flat refusal and offer a softer reframe of it.
- Note which questions depend on documents, data or a second source to be checked before publication.
- Keep the total to what fits the interview length.
Output format Numbered question list under short block headings, 15 to 25 questions total, plus a one-line "if they dodge" note per block. No preamble, no commentary on the story itself, no suggested answers.
Guardrails
- Do not invent facts, quotes, documents, figures or names. Work only from what the user supplies and mark gaps as gaps.
- Flag any question that touches defamation risk, an ongoing legal matter, a minor, or a confidential agreement, and say an editor or lawyer should review it first.
- State plainly when a question assumes knowledge the source may not have.
Example Story: council housing repairs backlog; Source: tenant association chair; Purpose: first-hand account of delays; Known facts: three open work orders since March; Format: digital news feature, 900 words; Deadline: Thursday.