New first for NPR’s Andy Carvin: the Twitter interview

“[W]hat could be more dull than two Twitter geeks with their heads buried in their laptops as the interview subject patiently waits for us to type?” writes NPR’s Andy Carvin in this detailed account of his May 19 Twitter interview with Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser and author of the speech that President Obama delivered on U.S. policy on the Middle East. The ground-breaking interview may have been visually dull to those who watched it on video stream, but the tactics that Carvin used to solicit and ask questions, and NPR’s rationale for allowing him to accept the White House’s invitation to host the chat, turned out to be of great interest to Twitter heads and journalists.