Interviews take two.

This weeks post will be a fairly short contribution to what is now my well-underway blog. The past seven days have been a blur as I now speed towards the end of my university year. This week was focussed on the completion of my second journalism news story, which as of now is probably one of the best I've written. The assigned task for my studies was to write a story about my local community, that was original and prevalent in the area. Whilst some of my course-mates wrote stories about increasing crime rates and other high-octane ideas, I wrote about parking. Yes I know how amazing that sounds, trust me I had trouble containing my own excitement at the prospects of writing it... The story itself revolved around an unfair parking system, that essentially duped anyone who dared to park their cars into paying a blatantly ill-found fine.

Unlike my past News Story that covered a much broader and profound issue, this article I wrote was merely to pressure the local council into fixing an unfair system. The interviews were what made up the thick of my work, mainly because of the sudden unavailability that plagued my interviewees, nonetheless if they couldn't see me, I'd go out of my way to see them. On the night of Tuesday there was a community meeting, which of course I attended. Not to my surprise the only people who attended these meetings had at least fifty years on me, which lead to their amazement when a "Nice young man" had come along for the evening. Before the meeting began I interviewed a down-to-earth character who, in his words, was "completely against" the recently renewed parking situation. My main interviewee of the night though was not to arrive until five minutes before the meeting began. The local councilman. He was a character that I would describe as, clearly having a fake persona up to mask his callous nature. While he attempted to tip-toe around the questions being thrown at him by the ageing community, I prepared myself for my questions. I kept my phone out and prepared it to record when I asked my questions, of course I planned on asking for his permission before I pressed the record button. A few minutes before my questioning began the councillor almost jumped when he saw I had my phone out, out-right stopping the meeting to ask if I was recording, to which I replied I was not. Like a deer in headlights, he seemed spooked and cautious for the rest of the night, as if I'd somehow offended him; As expected of a seemingly crook official.

In the end I got the councilman to answer the questions I needed and left without incident. The whole meeting acted as a good learning experience in regard to how to interview politicians, which in itself was an invaluable experience. The rest f the week was spent writing my story and preparing it for submission tomorrow.

With that I leave you for another week my dear readers, you'll hear from me soon.

A word from the writer.

Josh.