G21: What inspired you to start the SevenQuestions.com Web project?

TOM MANGAN: I had three things every online impresario needs: time on my hands, free content and a trusty source of surfers.

After I had moved to Silicon Valley in September 1999 to take a job at the San Jose Mercury News, I spent a few months getting the lay of the land, finding out where all the restrooms and gas stations are, etc.

Along around November I started getting the Web itch again (I've been at this since October 1996) and decided the most expedient way to start a new site would be to resume the SevenQuestions project, a series of interviews I had done in 1998 with working journalists I had met while developing a site called "Newsies on the Web," which had links to journalists' Web sites and other stuff of interest to journalists. The plan was to send out a mass mailing to all the people I'd interviewed before seeking fresh volunteers, and set out in search of new people to interview outside the news business.

As for the ready source of surfers, one of the guys I interviewed for the original SevenQuestions was Jim Romenesko, of Media News fame. He had a link to my old site at his Media Gossip page, so I figured right off the bat his link would drive a few people to my new page, they'd tell a few people and by word of mouth it'd catch on.

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Eventually, the net widened considerably and I started getting many more people in varied fields with wildly diverging interests. My most popular interview is with a professional pilot and amateur archaeologist who digs up the sites of former outhouses and finds all sorts of interesting gems, mostly old medicine bottles but occasionally toys and other relics from the days before indoor plumbing.

I never really knew what I was doing beyond interviewing people via email until I had about 50 or so posted (there's 60-plus now). In the course of asking a visitor's question about who gets interviewed it dawned on me what I had been doing: finding fascinating characters who might have interesting things to say if only they'd been asked. The point of my site is, I ask.

G21: Why do you think we "newsies" often fail to get it right in our interviewing process?

TOM MANGAN: I can't speak for my brethren on the reporting side because I've always worked as a copy editor and a designer. Heck, usually when I call an editor or reporter with a question on a story I'll find that they have already asked the same question but found the answer simply wasn't available. So, most of the time the interviews get it right, to tell the truth.

And there's the obvious case made by my site: interesting people are all over the place (particularly online), but you'll never pry their stories out of them if you don't do your homework, win their trust and ask the things they can answer well.

So, why do they get things wrong? Mostly because there are so many things standing in the way of them getting it right: some of it their fault -- ignorance, lack of curiosity, poor preparation -- some of it structural -- deadlines, available newshole, lunkheaded editors -- and some of it the breaks of the game -- if you don't find the person who says just what you want to say, well, they're not going to say it in your story.

It's hard to do this well and easy to screw it up.

G21: Various people, including your interviewee Jules Siegel, have complimented you on the design of your personal (resume') site. What would you advise other people designing for this medium to focus upon?

TOM MANGAN: Well, this is sort of akin to asking a soapbox derby winner for tips on winning the Indy 500. Best I can say is never settle for anything less than clean, polished design. That means hiring talent who really know how to make your content shine by matching it with the proper medium -- a musician's site has to have music files, an animator's site has to have animations. You've got to have the basics with as few distractions as possible.