I’ve been doing some on-line research for work. Nothing  special about that, I do it all the time. But this time is different. I’ve been researching at the site of a prominent monthly magazine in preparation for an in-house training with one of their journalists.

Here’s the background: We’ve noticed the need in our corporate publishing team to jazz up the interviews we do with customers, executives, and industry experts. We want sexy stories. But I feel we’ve gotten lazy and tend to read off the same list of questions (“What was the benefit to your business?”) and then print up the results after some slight editing. An interview might sound easy, but it is one of the hardest stories to write well. You need a rapport and trust with the interview partner – which is hard to do if the interview is conducted by phone, as they often are - because you want to draw interesting bits of detail and anecdotes from your guest. When you write up the interview, you want to begin with a startling question, not something that makes it look as if you haven’t done your homework (“Tell us about your business”). Although we scrub the answers and mix up the order of the questions and answers for best results, we felt that our interviews could be improved. And that was a sign to my boss to do something about it. He decided to hire a professional to train the team in interview techniques and in writing up interviews.

The  journalist who was recommended will join us for a full day’s training in October. He writes for a magazine, my boss assured the team, that is famous for its interviews.

That magazine is Playboy.

Playboy has got to be one of the few magazines that I don’t buy. And if I did, I bet the interviews wouldn’t get my full attention. Someone on Facebook recently referred to magazines as the “lemon sorbet of literature,”  but I think they were referring to the light and pretty home, fashion, and celebrity magazines that a lot of us are suckers for.

And that explains why I’ve been doing my online research at playboy.com. I read their 1980 interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.  I read the 1976 interview with Elton John. My further research revealed that 98% of their interviews are conducted with male celebrities, that the women they interview are TV starlets and talk show hosts, and that the photos of these ladies might well be placed in the centerfold. But what are my chances of getting an interview with someone who wants to talk about shows, shades, and shoes? My SAP playmates talk about software, services, and sales.

I have to admit Playboy’s hacks are good. Here’s an example of what I mean about beginning an interview with a startling question:

PLAYBOY: Judging by the title of your latest book—Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea—we know your liquor of choice. Why is vodka a superior form of alcohol?
CHELSEA HANDLER:Vodka is great because it doesn’t have an odor. If you drink rum or tequila, your breath will have a very distinct alcohol smell. I was looking for something a little more subtle because I don’t like to smell like a prostitute in the morning. Not that I’m worried about offending anybody. I’m usually alone when I wake up. You can’t fit two people into a bathtub. Yeah, that’s right, I’m a class act all the way. Klassy with a capital k.

PLAYBOY: You sound like our kind of girl.
CHELSEA HANDLER: I drink often and I drink frequently…

I hope that our trainer is creative because I don’t believe that we have ever mentioned alcohol or sex or nudity in our corporate publishing channels. And our interviewees are always fully clothed in the photos. But maybe I am being unfair. Maybe the interview techniques are the same. And who knows? Maybe this could be my chance to move into the world of entertainment journalism.

It is Sunday night and several million viewers in Germany are watching their iconic detective series, Tatort. I wish I were watching Tatort too. I love Tatort. I love its cheesy 70s theme music and the Sunday night ritual it could be. I even learned German by watching Tatorts. (Back in the late 1980s when we lived in Beijing, our friends Michael and Andrea received videotapes of the weekly Tatort via diplomatic pouch from family in Germany and the four of us would stretch on their giantic bed in the Friendship Hotel compound for our own private viewing).

But if I went downstairs right now and looked around the living room, I would not find a TV. If I searched in my husband’s study I would not locate a set. I would have no luck looking for a TV in our bedroom, or our childrens’ bedrooms, or in our kitchen. We belong to that unusual breed of people who have no TV.

It wasn’t always this way. Whenever we lived in rented flats, we had a TV. And I watched a lot. In fact, I get addicted. When we first came to Germany, I even watched the “Vorabendserien” – the harmless, early evening shows about doctors and teachers, arguing that it was a good way to learn German. Whenever we go on vacation, we gorge on TV in our hotel rooms. Forget the bar or the dancing when I am traveling on business – I watch CNN or HBO or BBC. I am probably one of the few people on the planet who saw only one or two episodes of Sex and the City – once in a hotel in Hanoi, and once in a hotel in Barcelona. But did I need more? No. The magazines and newspapers with their celebrity adoration and analysis and how to get Carrie’s look told me all I need to know. (And I consume a lot of magazines and newspapers).

We have just never been able to bring ourselves to hike down to Media Markt and pick out a wide screen, flat panel, high definition Sony. And yet there is nothing more I would love than a home cinema with a gigantic screen, and blu-ray disc player. My boys would cheer. My husband not.