While writing articles, you’re obligated to get involved outside of the classroom, which involves interviewing. When you’re conducting an interview, it can usually go one of two ways: very simple and easy or very complicated and hard. It all depends on the topic you have chosen and who you are interviewing. You have to make sure you cover all aspects of the subject and ask questions that are relevant and can give readers and solid idea of what information you are presenting to them. In my opinion, interviewing is one of the most fun aspects of journalism because you have the opportunity to interact outside of the classroom with different people and hear their perspectives on events. Also, having someone talk about the subject makes it easier to write about.

However, there are times when interviewing can become quite complicated. For example, if a person that you are interviewing does not exactly understand or fails to accurately get their point across, it can be difficult to incorporate the interview into your article.  Sometimes a person just isn’t obliged to cooperate and can make the article harder to write.

In a recent article, I decided to do a featured piece discussing the issues of a popular chemical used for working out. In this article, I got the opportunity to interview a student who was a frequent user of the supplement. The angle of my article was supposed to be the harmful and dangerous effects of this workout supplement; however, the student just described how they used it,  how it affected people, and the circumstances of the product. While the student did a fantastic job of explaining the use of the supplement, how much, and what it contained, the interview did not really support the direction I envisioned for my article.  This sent me back to brainstorming.

Interviewing can make my job easier when writing an article, just from simple answers, but sometimes, it can make my job much harder. All in all, interviewing is usually a positive step in journalism because it’s fun getting people’s perspectives and letting them tell their stories.