Someone recently asked me if I knew how many interviews I had done over the last 30 years and my answer was, “I have no clue!” I never really thought there would be a need to count them all. I just know there have been a bunch!

But it made me think about all the people I’ve talked to over the years, all the places I have visited in order to talk to them, and how the tools of the interviewing trade have changed over the last three decades.

For years, I carried a reporter’s notebook in my back pocket to take the best notes I could. To be honest, I still carry those notepads and scribble down certain remarks during interviews.

My first pieces of copy were written on word processors, a cross between the old standard typewriters and a precursor of the desktop computer.

One of the publications I worked for had a single computer in the center of the newsroom with leftover typewriters and these huge word processing machines that somehow fed copy to the editors in charge of typesetting.  

It sounds like an ancient process when you think about how we create copy today and can move it instantly across the planet.

With the onset of cell phones, laptops, and digital recorders over the years, I found that I could interview anyone anywhere from the comfort of my own home, while in my car, or in the middle of a soybean field in Adair County, something I have done, by the way. And it was great to be able to do that!

Cameras have also evolved from film to digital images, equipped with Wi-Fi and the capability to take stills as well as high-definition video.

As I sit at my desk and type these words with a instantaneously super-duper computer and dual monitors, (I think there is a “Hemi” in there somewhere!), I can’t help but think how in the world did I do what I’ve done for so many years ago without the help of all this modern technology.

I must admit it has been a blessing to have so many technical tools at my disposal. However, there is one thing that I don’t feel technology can take the place of, and that is human interaction.

Of all the Zoom, telephone, and email interviews I do now thanks to these remarkable technological advances, nothing, to me, can take the place of sitting with someone to hear their stories, to experience their emotions, and to understand them in a way no computerized method can produce. 

Throughout the years, I have laughed with, cried with, and prayed with so many people who have been willing to share a part of their lives with me, and I don’t feel as though I could have conveyed those stories properly without experiencing them in person.

As we now grapple with the world of artificial intelligence, we are seeing a whole new kind of technology that we are told will change the world. And while I think it can be useful in so many ways, for me, I don’t feel AI will ever be able to capture one’s emotions or understand the human heart in the same way as being with a person face to face, and hand in hand. For me that is the best kind of “technology” to use, as I travel down the backroads.