The Interview as a Diplomatic Tool
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Beyond journalism, the interview has long served as a means of formal exchange between representatives of different nations or institutions, a carefully structured conversation where every word carries potential consequence well beyond the room in which it is spoken. Ordinary conversational looseness has almost no place within this particular use of the format.
This use of the format demands unusual precision: questions and answers alike are often prepared and reviewed extensively in advance, since an unintended implication in even a single phrase can carry weight far beyond what an ordinary conversational interview would ever risk. Every phrase is weighed for implication long before it is ever actually spoken aloud in the room.
The formality inherent in this diplomatic use of interviewing sits at one extreme of the craft, illustrating how far the same basic structure, question and answer, can stretch to serve purposes well beyond its more familiar journalistic or personal applications. Few other uses of the interview demand this level of care over every single word chosen.