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Bias is a distortion of judgment that is personal and can affect the outcome of the interview. Interviewers should be careful not to give their opinions during the interview or to edit material so that the opinion of the interviewee is distorted.
According to Webster ethics is the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duties and obligations. What must you do to promote an ethical standard when conducting oral history sessions? Interviewees should be made fully aware of how this material will be used.
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Interviewers should guard against compromising or exploiting the person they are interviewing.
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Interviewees should have the opportunity to answer questions as freely as possible.
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Interviewees should be able to withdraw any time.
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When the interviewee asks that the tape be stopped, the interviewer should do so.
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Stereotypes should be avoided.
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Information collected should be available to others who have an interest in this topic.
Oral history interviews are subject to U.S. copyright law (1978) (http://www3.baylor.edu/Oral_History/)
A general release form should be signed.
Oral history interviews are subject to libel and slander laws. If slanderous information is given in the interview, the interviewer should be prepared to omit that section of the interview or to omit the name of the person being slandered.
What the interviewee tells you is his/her perception of the topic you are covering. Sometimes what they tell you does not jibe with what you know the facts to be. This could be caused by a distortion of the memory of person being interviewed. It could also be that what this person saw may, in fact, be different from what the popular memory, (or the memory that is often reported) is. It is important not to correct or interrupt the interviewee.
A primary source is firsthand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under investigation. These may be
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Objects artifacts, tools, weapons, inventions, fashion, tombstones, etc.
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Images photographs, film, video
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Audio music, audio recordings
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Statistics census data, land surveys, maps, blueprints, architectural drawings.
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Text cookbooks, advertisements
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The Community family photographs, recipes, clothes, oral histories, local historical societies, etc.
Responsibility
Responsibility to the Interviewee
Interviewees should be able to withdraw any time.
When the interviewee asks that the tape be stopped, the interviewer should do so.
The interviewer must accurately portray the words of the interviewee.
Responsibility to the Public
Oral historians has the responsibility to
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Maintain the highest standards.
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Not interject bias into either the recording or the editing process.
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Select subjects based on their knowledge of what is being studied.
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Make information available to interested parties.
To transcribe a topic, the interviewer writes a word-by-word narrative of exactly what is said, including pauses.
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Transcripts give the exact wording of the interviewee including whatever grammar was used.
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Transcription is time consuming. If you are just looking for where in a tape something occurs, a rough copy might be sufficient.
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