Blog 1: My Experience Interviewing

Over the course of this past week, I conducted a number of interviews with individuals around my community for a story I am working on about feral cat colonies and the trap-neuter-release (TNR) process. My experience was a journey of personal growth wherein I overcame challenges that have ultimately allowed me to create a deeper understanding of effective interviewing techniques and boosted my confidence in the field of journalism.

Starting off my interviewing process, I asked a woman in my neighborhood–whose property has become a hub for a large feral cat colony–if she would be willing to do an interview with me about her experience with the cats. I was anxious as I tried to anticipate her response, but she was thankfully very open to the idea. On the day of the interview, I made sure that my wireless microphone was charged–I also brought my

backup, just in case–and helped guide her on how to wear the Lavalier microphone. We did a quick test to make sure that everything was working properly, and then I began asking her the questions that I had prepared ahead of time. Everything was going smoothly until she accidentally removed her mic about halfway through the interview, and did not want to put it back on at my suggestion. Instead, she opted to hold it, but as a rather expressive individual, she kept waving her hands around, which I was worried would degrade the sound quality. However, as I glanced at the audio levels on my phone screen, I was thankful to see that the audio was still properly picking up her responses. I got really lucky during that interview, but I know that as I interview people more, I may have to be more assertive if something like this happens again.

My second interview for this project was with a woman who works at a TNR organization in Lackawanna. We planned to interview between 1 and 2 p.m., but unexpected road work and traffic delayed my original plan of arriving at 1:30 p.m. Though I wasn’t late, I now know that in the future, I will have to allow myself extra time to arrive at my destination. Besides that, this interview went perfectly! She was so happy that I had come to learn more about her organization and loved the questions that I had prepared. It definitely boosted my confidence and made me a lot less nervous about interviewing people that I had never met.

I believe that I did a good job making sure that I was fully prepared before each interview. I also am happy with the fact that I was able to come up with questions for my interviewees on the spot if the conversation took us in a different direction than I had planned. It definitely helped me overcome my fears of interviewing strangers a lot more.