March 25
Today I did an interview with an author that lasted for an entire hour. At the beginning of my internship, my supervisor told me not to do interviews for longer than 20 minutes but the author was so interesting that I only started to feel like the interview was dragging on after 50 minutes. I let it go on that long because I was interested to find out more and have all of my questions answered. We interviewed him because he is releasing a book about his search for an Argentinian rebel and journalist that he found out he was related to because they shared the same uncommon last name.
I also spoke to the husband of an Inuit artist who is very well known in Canada. I was not able to speak to her directly since she had a bit of trouble understanding me. In hindsight, I do speak pretty quickly which can be difficult to follow if you are not a native english speaker. Even my mom has difficulty understanding me sometimes!
I learned from her husband that the reason she was not able to understand me is that she is a residential school survivor and was pulled out when she was in third grade. Based on what he said, I do not think she continued her education afterwards. He told me that for the interview, I will have to ask direct questions and not veer off topic too much so I will have to make an extra effort to be as clear as possible with my questions. This is a crucial skill to learn because journalism is all about communicating with people to get information. If you cannot adapt to accommodate your interviewee, you will not be able to get the information you need. More importantly though, not working with your interviewee to make sure they are comfortable is insensitive and disrespectful.