......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... doi:10.1017/S1049096519000921 © American Political Science Association, 2019 PS • 2019 1 The Profession Want to Interview a Politician? Ways to Prepare for Digital Vetting by Political Staffers Anna Lennox Esselment, University of Waterloo Alex Marland, Memorial University of Newfoundland ABSTRACT This article outlines how the advent of digital-communications technology, particularly social media, has contributed to an increased wariness by political elites to grant interviews to researchers. Errant remarks, misquotes, and comments taken out of context can exact a heavy price. Thus, politicians and their gatekeepers are far more cau- tious and risk averse than in decades past, which puts qualitative research methods—and the rich data they produce—in peril. Insights drawn from 32 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with social scientists, political journalists, and political staffers in six countries revealed that academics who submit interview requests should expect to be subjected to online scrutiny—a vetting—by gatekeepers before any access is granted. Digital screening aims to assess the authenticity and objectivity of the researcher. Our findings suggest that scholars who want to pursue qualitative research with politicians must practice online rep- utation management and perhaps even delve into personal marketing. O btaining interviews with politicians is difficult. We are among what appears to be a declining number of political scientists who have conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews with current and former heads of government, cabinet members, members of legislative assemblies, political consultants, election candidates, public servants, and others. We have learned that submitting interview requests must evolve with changing political and technological environments. Researchers today must adapt to the fast-paced political atmosphere of triage and suspicion. Social media firestorms, instantaneous news, opponents trolling for controversy, comments going viral—all of this puts political offices on edge. Gatekeepers have increas- ing reason to block an academic’s request from ever making it to the intended participant. This research barrier is a serious problem for political science. A precipitous decline in quali- tative data collection means that we are in peril of losing the context, nuances, and rationales for behavior that can be pro- vided only by those immersed in political and public decision making (Curry 2017; McDonald and Mooney 2011). It also means that refining techniques to secure interviews is crucial; in the face of nonresponse, researchers should be wary about relying on referrals (i.e., “snowball” sampling), which can generate non- representative data. We want to improve the ability of social scientists to obtain interviews with politicians. Sharing our personal experiences is of limited value because they are particular to our individual practices in a single country. Therefore, we recently conducted 32 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with social scientists, political journalists, and political staffers in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States to find out what they recommend. We asked: What are some of the most effective ways to establish contact with a pol- itician? What happens when a political office receives a request for an interview? What advice can you offer about working with gatekeepers to secure an interview? How do digital communica- tion and social media have implications for researchers’ ability to connect with public officeholders? (For methodological details, see Marland and Esselment 2018.) The digital environment is a disruptor to traditional quali- tative research methods for reasons outlined herein. Qualitative researchers might overlook the importance of their virtual foot- print in procuring an interview with a politician; however, we discovered that cybervetting is a natural response to requests for interviews, and the scrutiny puts the academic under a microscope. Anna Lennox Esselment is associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo. She can be reached at alesselm@uwaterloo.ca. Alex Marland is professor of political science at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He can be reached at amarland@mun.ca.