The Interview at the Beginning of Its History. Changes in the Implementations of the Genre

Abstract

The interview as a journalistic genre formed in the first half of the 19th century. The author of the article studies how interviews developed in the first century of its existence. As the material basis I use the anthology: Wywiady prasowe wszech czasów originally edited by C. Silvester as The Penguin Book of Interviews. The genological analysis indicates that even at the beginning of the genre, interviewers selected as interviewees persons who had something to say about a certain topic. In terms of the structure of the interview, one might conclude that the first instances had the shape and form of a dialogue of two persons of specific pragmatic qualities: a journalist and the person with whom a conservation was considered worthy of publishing in a newspaper. Somewhat along that form, there emerged interviews which included narration, similar in form to the report. The author discusses the reasons for the similarities between the interview and the report.