Tuesday 25 February 2014

Feature Interviews/ Profiles/ General Features

Distinct features
·         Confessional first person
·         Feature Interviews
·         Profiles
·         General Features
·         Simplicity- nice clean format (feature interview)
History of Interviews
·         1884 Pall Mall Gazette Editor WD stead (first interview
·         1890 US Pulitzer/ Hearst
·         1960 US New Journalism (literacy) reportage- Hunter S Thompson i/v Nixon, Tom Woolf, Norman Mailer- extravagant
·         Andy Warhol ‘Interview’ magazine 1969 dedicated to the cult of celebrity.

Interview Types
1.       Celebrity
2.       Briefing
3.       One to one
4.       Q & A

21st Century
·         Interview ‘dying’.
·         Stars websites.
·         Q & A format, no freedom to write work in an interesting way.
·         Copy/ Pic approval

Tips for a successful interview
·         Don’t be late
·         Look Professional
·         Choose a quiet venue for the interview but also somewhere that has an atmosphere
·         Expect the worst; don’t assume every interviewee will give a great interview. Have a few confrontational questions on standby if your interviewee isn’t being responsive.
·         Never say no
·         Always prepare your questions
·         Do your homework, research your interviewee

Classic Questions
·         How do you know?
·         What makes you say that?
·         Can you give me an example?
·         Tell me a story about your childhood

·         Judges of the British Press Awards look for an imaginative choice of interviews as well as an ability to extract revelations from frequently interviewed subjects. They also search for a writer with a distinctive style in a highly competitive field.

Profile Writing is an obituary for a living person, not technically an interview. Man/ woman in the news. Anonymous, no direct speech.
Method:
·         Sketch out life map
·         Word length consistent in length
·         Indentify people to i/v
·         Friends and foe
·         Editor’s view
·         Straight chronological summary
·         Balance is essential

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