How to conduct interviews in Journalism

Conducting and interview for a good news story in print media, television broadcasting, or radio broadcasting requires certain skills. a journalist has to conduct interviews with the people who have the information what is calles a SOURCE. An interview as one of the most important methodology to tape information from reliable sorces is the process of asking good questions so you can get good answers for your news story. If you have never conducted an interview, the idea of doing one may seem a little scary yet this is an easy task that needs sociable skills. If you imagine that the interview is just a conversation with the other person, doing the interview will be much less frightening. Before the an Interview one need to make an appointment and then Set aside time to conduct the interview. Unless the person to be interviewed is busy, that need to be rescheduled or change the manner it was to be conducted using mobile phone interviews or online interviews. Sometimes an interview can only take a few minutes, and they is need for a journalist to schedule a little extra time so that the person to be interviewed do not feel constrained for time. They is need to dress appropriately. Impressions make an impact on the person being interviewed. Dress up well or wear your organization’s official attire. Avoid jeans or shorts or an attire that is seductive as the source may be carried away and end up failing to provide the answer. As human beings we have feeling unlike objectives and someone of opposite sex may attract the source and disturb the flow of ideas to develop a story They is need to prepare ahead at least ten good and relevant questions in advance. These questions should pertain directly to the topic you need information about. Think about what your audience needs to know and information that will give the story depth as you prepare the questions. What does your audience want to know? A news reporter should understand the subject matter (at least a little bit). The person being interviewed is the expert on the topic. Otherwise, you would not have called on the person for an interview. However, it is good practice to do at least a little research on the topic as well as the person to be involved beforehand so that you can ask good and relevant questions. Pactuality is important as newsman. Be on time for the interview. Being prompt makes a good impression on the person being interviewed. During the Interview Ethics are important in journalism and as such If one plan to use an audio recorder, capture videos and audios during the interview, first obtain the interviewee’s permission to do so. If you are doing a television interview, before you arrive let the person being interviewed know that you will have a video camera. Use short hand to take good notes. Do not rely on an audio recorder as batteries may die.State the interview’s purpose. What do you want to cover in the interview? Be sociable and break the ice with light conversation to put your sorce at easy. Make the person being interviewed feel comfortable. Let your subject do the talking. Stick to Maxim law of communication and do not break in while someone is answering a question. Wait until the person has completed answering a question. Get at least three good, insightful direct quotes to liven up the story and to prove that your story hard sorces. This should be your goal in an interview. Get correct information and verify spellings, name, age and job description. Ask persons you interview to provide the correct spelling of their names and their job titles. Do not assume you know what they are. One way of getting their correct information is to ask for their business card. Collect more information than you think you will need and do not be shy to ask questions. Avoid being bashful, but ask the person to repeat something important. It is better to have something repeated and get the information correct than to get it wrong. Take note of the surroundings. A few notes about the room and other surroundings may be useful in a feature story to help set the mood of your story. when asking questions, listen carefully to the answers and take good notes. As the person talks, ask yourself, “What is my lead going to be? Do I understand enough to state a theme clearly and support it with quotes?” In addition ,never start with the tough questions. Break the ice by explaining who you are and what you are doing. Be pleasant but purposeful. You are there to get information, so do not be timid about asking questions and use the list of questions you prepared. Start with the easier questions, and then move to more in-depth questions or ask one that comes to mind and do not be afraid to leave your set of questions. If a prepared question is no longer suitable, move to the next question. Some answers prompt additional questions. Ask them as they arise. Listen to what the person is saying. One question should logically follow another. Remain objective and avoid to offer your opinions on the subject. You are there to report, not to editorialize and stay on track. If the interviewee strays too far from the subject, ask a specific question to redirect the conversation. Always avoid yes/no questions. These only provide yes/no answers and start with questions focusing on the five Ws and H: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Get in the habit of asking more probing questions, such as, “What do you mean?” and “Why is that?” Make it a habit that at the end of the Interview take a close look, take a few minutes to skim your notes. If time allows, ask the interviewee to clarify anything that you did not understand. Seek for permission to call back or e-mail later for more information, if necessary and smile, thank the interviewee, and leave. Fill in all the blanks immediately. As soon as the interview is over, while it is fresh in your mind, go back to your notes and fill in any blanks that you were not able to write down during the interview. Be in the habit of asking close-ended questions provide short answers. The answer to the example close-ended question below would provide just a list of the positive courses. Ask also Open-ended questions that can provide longer answers. The answer from an open-ended question provides a much longer response.Open-ended question or Probe questions follow up on something the interviewee has said. Ask also mirror question that makes the source to repeat part of the person’s answer, prompting the person to explain an answer further. A mirror question is often paired with a probe question. ” Avoid leading questions that are considered unethical by many news writers. A leading question strongly suggests the “right” answer to an interviewee.

Data Journalism

Data Journalism is another way to inspecting the world and hold the powers that be to account. With an increasing amount of data available, now more than ever it is significant that journalists are of aware of data journalism techniques (Lashmar and Hill 2014). Data journalism means information, nothing more. In the common usage, it refers to colossal amount of information, often numeric, which can be presented by the use of graphs, maps and other illustrative means (Knight and Cook 2013). Data journalism usually refers to numeric or digital data, or information that is given in such bulk as to be difficult to access or understand by average users. This should be a tool in the toolkit of any journalist; whether learning how to work with data directly, or work together with someone who can. Data journalism like investigative journalism is a rarely an “easy win”. It takes time to analyse pages of data and may involve a team of journalists working together. Most data come in the format of large tables and spreadsheets which are intimidating to our users (Lashmar and Hill 2014). Data should be gathered and processed, visualized in a format that is searchable to users and easier to interpret. Journalism is about people and not numbers. The best way to explain the importance of a story is to interview someone who has some personal experience. Knight and Cook (2013) argued that data journalism does not need most sophisticated software or qualifies programmers. Technology is getting easier and easier to use, and the stories are getting better and better. Financial data is probably the oldest form of data journalism-every newspaper of sufficient size runs graphs of stock movements and pages of fine-printed numbers, but this are intended for expert use. Although the stock pages are an important kind of journalism, most news that uses data does so in the service of telling a story, not simple presenting the numbers for analysis. The story telling is fundamental to the process of journalism. The journalist’s role must be to make sense of data journalism raw data, not simple presenting it. It is a narrative function that is essential to the process of data journalism, and distinguishes news outlets from everyone else publishing data. In the new age of social media, data itself become social. The is new wealth of data that is being created by the social media networks, as well as new sources of information and material from users. Data journalism uses “crowd sourcing” that is the practice of asking the public for input. This can be anything from soliciting pictures to asking for help in the reporting process (Knight and Cook 2013:120). Crowd sourcing, like many of the terms used, it still opens to interpretation but, in general, it refers to soliciting raw material from the users. Data is a modern word for information and, in that sense, all journalism is data journalism, since all journalism trades in information of one sort or another. T software such as MS Excel here are four critical stages for data journalism such as finding data, interrogating data, visualizing data and mashing data. Journalists need to be thorough and skeptical in their approach as they write articles for data journalism. Spreadsheet software such as MS Excel and google Spreadsheet, are at the core of data journalism. Spreadsheets are an incredibly powerful tools and worth spending few hours getting to grips with what they can do. There are added benefits to use spreadsheets to monitor income and outgoing tax.

Characteristics of a good editor

Motivates and shows enthusiasm Reporters see you as a partner in producing great stories, not as a schoolmarm ready to catch their errors. When a story idea or draft is not clicking, you can assist in turning it into something better, rather than being quick to write it off as a flop. When you have to torpedo a bad idea or point out bad writing, reporters know it is coming from foundation of respect Cares about making a story better A good editor knows how to make a story better. That means a lot more than deleting unnecessary sentences or making a story clear. He can read a story, digest it and then decide the scope, goals, tone, voice and character development and then figure out which of those need to be improved. Is honest and candid Interact with reporters and respect the untidy process of developing ideas Editorial Page editor: In every newsroom there is a department that specializes on production issues, like designing the masthead, deciding the positioning of stories as well as the placing of advertisements. Traditionally the editorial duties have been separated from news gathering to distinguish between fact and opinion. Reporters deal with facts, not opinion, although occasionally they may be asked to write analytical articles. Managing Editor: The primary responsibility for news-gathering operations is in the hands of the managing editor. Brook et al (1988) argued that the managing editor is the highest-ranking person who makes frequent appearances in the newsroom. On the other hand, the managing editor makes decisions about placement of major stories in the newspaper. The managing editor does the hiring, prepares the newsroom budget and makes most of the editorial department’s policy decisions in consultation with the editor. News editor: This editor has supervisory control of the copy desk, where final editing of the story is done, pages are designed and headlines are written. Furthermore, assisting the news editor are copy editors, experts who polish the wording of stories. They check verifiable information, including the spelling of names and also write headlines. They also crop and size photographs and other artwork, layout pages and work directly with the composing room to make sure that stories fit the space available The news editor is in charge of enforcing deadlines so that the newspaper comes out on time. Typical Structure of News Room organization