Being flexible when interviewing can help you find creative angles for your stories. This is because if you always want to get answers in the certain angle, you will miss lots of information that you don’t know before. Being flexible when interviewing can help you find creative angles for your stories.
This week, I did several interviews on a smoking story. At first, I needed to focus on whether the number of people who want to quit smoking increase and got several questions on this topic. However, when interviewing some experts on tobacco cessation, I found that the story should not be just about the number of people who want to quit but about the few source people who want to quit can get during the pandemic. Those health educators really want more attention on the tobacco cessation issue and want more people to know their free tobacco cessation courses. I thought this issue is more meaningful to the locals.
Therefore, if I only focus on the topic I thought, I would miss lots of new information provided by these professionals who know more about the situation. Thus, to be fair to welcome all new ideas, being flexible is not just a skill but also a requirement for journalists.
This topic was also discussed in the lecture and here is the link of the interview. The reporter might be too persistent to get the answers she wanted and ignore some points from Clinton.
Larissa Gao 