Interview in a picture

The rock in the background represents the background information that the interviewer must find out.

The lighthouse is the one thing that you are trying to find out about your interviewee, the focal point of your interview

The waves represent waves of questions that the interviewer asks

Ad the chair is where the interviewee will sit as wave after wave of questions approach.

Post #1 - Journalism

I would say that, as far as high school students go, I follow world news pretty closely. It is through this that I have gotten most of my exposure to journalism. I listen to NPR almost anytime that I am driving and try to check my personalized google news daily. There are a few reasons that I do this, the first and foremost is that I like to be informed and know what is going on in the world around me as it often has influence over my life. I have to say that I much prefer listing to news and journalists than reading it. One reason for this is that I find, at least on NPR and the BBC they live stream, there is less of a bias in radio than newspaper. And if there is a bit of a biased it is usually left leaning which agrees with my point of view in most cases. I think this gets to the one thing that bothers me most about journalism, when people are very badly, and often obviously, bias. I believe this to be true no matter which side it comes from as it distorts the truth and doesn't leave people to make their own decisions about things, that said I know it is really hard to write from an unbiased point of view and so I applaud anyone who is able to make this work. 

Post #2 - Good interview

There are a few things that go into creating a successful interview. The first two parts are to decide who one wants to interview and to choose what the interview is going to try and find about about a certain person or topic. This first step requires some research, most likely into both a topic and a subject, making sure you now enough about each that if the conversation steers away from your questions you will still feel comfortable and be able to work with what is presented. Once these pieces have been established one can move onto the next step, creating questions to ask ones interviewee about their lives or the chosen subject. In terms of what makes a good interview questions, there are many answers that can vary based on the situation. At other most basic level one wants to create a positive environment where the subject feels comfortable sharing information. There are a few pieces to this, don't start into your specific questions right away, start with easy everyday questions to get the conversation stated. After that make sure that ones questions are not too pointed and that they are open ended allowing large amounts of information to be gleaned for the interviewee, and to let other have some control over the conversation. After questions and an over all strategy have been conceived the interview can then seek out the subject for an interview. At the actual interview be sure to make small talk at the beginning, then move to the per-writen questions and finally let the interviewee add anything that they would like to say. It is probably a good idea to record the session in some way other than furiously scribbling notes while talking to the person and to either ask clarifying questions or look up works and phrases you may not know. 

Post #3 - Personality Profile

I read an personality profile of Michael Bérubé by Angela Haupt. The profile starts with a quick history of Bérubé's life, to get information about this without too much detail the question: "what aspect of you childhood most affected your life?" could be asked. Another section of the profile probably came from the question, "How do you respond to questions about controversial subjects in your classroom?" This question yielded answers in which Bérubé told of his ability to answer questions indirectly so they don't cause too much discussion. A third question that Haupt probably asked is, "How do you feel about being in Horowitz' book?" This question would give answers about Bérubé's thoughts on Horowitz and his writing.

One big difference between a front page article and a personality profile is the subject. The first is usually about a topic of interest rather than a person of interest, it is usually very specific, and it is less personal. Personality profiles on the other hand are about a specific person, and often includes  that persons thoughts/feelings and not just their role in an event. They also seem to show a lot about who the subject in on a personal level than a newspaper article would.