As Amazon Prime Video kicked off its second season of Thursday Night Football, you probably saw Taylor Rooks and the feature interview she did with Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson. Rooks has been the features reporter for the TNF package and there is a different type of prep she does compared to other reporters.
Rooks was a guest on the Front Office Sports Today podcast and she said that in addition to doing her research on the player she is featuring for Amazon, Bleacher Report or TNT, she also wants to get an idea of what type of questions she can ask.
“One of my favorite things is watching all of their interviews and not only to get information about them. I like to see how they responded to a question, what they talked about longer, what they talked about shorter. What was the interview they were doing that made them want to discuss certain things? What was very clear that they did not want to keep on going and how can I ask it in a way that they want to talk more? Whenever I talk to younger journalists, I always say that you should watch the interview not just for the content, but for the interaction too. I tend to do that when I have one coming up.”
Rooks has had experience in her career as a sideline reporter in addition to what she does now. The move to studio features has allowed her to do more in interviews.
“I love having more time. You can obviously make the guest feel more comfortable, but then you are also able to talk about the things that you want as opposed to just the things that you have to. When you have that small amount of time, what’s the game story, what do they want to hear? In my experience, the things that are most interesting are things where you need time to discuss, ask follow-ups, see how they feel, why they did it and what led up to it and things like that. Having more time, to me, gets to the meat of it which is just what I prefer to do.
“There is a very specific and impressive skill that comes with career sideline reporters to be able to ask the right question, get the right bite, keep everything on track, wrangle everybody. That is a job within itself. I think with longform, it’s such a contained environment and I just feel like you can really talk in a way that you don’t get to in any other spots.”
