Long Ago Interview Of Me Online

About twice a year, in this case probably less, I check to see what others are seeing about me, my writings and opinions. This is a long ago forgotten interview with the organisation listed at the end. I thought it might me of interest to others, maybe those in the field of jounalism.


JOURNALISM

Q. What is your specialty?
A. What subjects do you deal with?I am a feature writer, for the most part. I write for a local newspaper, as well as the occasional magazine.

Q.In which media do you presently work or have you worked?
A.Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington, River Journal, a local magazine, as an independent correspondent.

Q. Please list a web address where where one can view an example of your work.
A.blog: bayviews.blogspot.com,spokesman-review archives

Q. What is "news"?
A. News is information. It is especially important if the news isn't available elsewhere.

Q. To you, what is objectivity?
A. If you have an opinion before the story, you cannot write it. I have passed on many stories that I was involved in. Objectivity is being in the middle and not a part of the story.

Q.What is the best headline you have ever read?
A.Japan Surrenders

Q. What headline would you like to see printed one day in the newspaper?
A. Peace has broken out around the world

 Q. Which paper do you buy on Sundays? Where do you read it?
A. Spokesman-Review at home.

Q.  Does freedom of expression end where the editorial line begins?
A. It only begins. Much of the time, biased opinion dominates even the news.

Q. Do you feel that analytical and investigative journalism is being lost?
A. Yes

Q. With a camera on every mobile phone, is every citizen becoming a correspondent?
A. Not unless they have the capacity to transfer the picture to the Internet, and even then it is likely that the quality of the picture would not be printable. Then they have to have the ability to tell the story behind the picture intelligently.

Q. How would you explain the boom of the tabloid press?
A. I wouldn't know. I don't read about two headed babies.

Q. What is your position regarding the right to privacy of famous people?
A. Privacy, in my mind, is within the home or a private place. If a celebrity is posing in a public place, they are fair game. Still, telephoto lenses into private homes swimming pools isn't fair game. Most celebrities love the attention of the press. It just isn't fair game when they try to invade the privacy of your home, or your private sojourns.

Perhaps as I am old and was taught at an early age that good manners were important in life, I am not in the main stream anymore. It seems that shrill insults are the norm and common courtesy is out.

Q. What can you teach us about the art of the interview?Listen carefully and take notes. Inaccuracy is the downfall of good writing.

Q. Please list well-known people you have interviewed.Ronald Reagan, Walter Knott, Rick Currie, John Schmitz, Dan English, etc., etc.
Q. Would you say the journalism blog is revolutionizing the profession?
A. Absolutely. It is revolutionizing the media and at the same time will destroy it if it isn't controlled beyond the shrill behavior of adult children wanting to be heard.

Somehow, between the last generation, or perhaps the one before, kids are not taught to respect others, or even practice patriotism. This may be a byproduct of the 60's when their parents were linking hands in street intersections, yelling, "Hell no, I won't go."

What we have now, is a generation of young adults that don't have a clue about how to respect others of differing opinions.

Q. Will the paper press disappear?
A. Probably as it now exists, yes. My paper is already half of what it was. While I am old fashioned and my mornings start out reading the paper from beginning to end, I am afraid that this is an over fifty thing. Either the younger set gets their news from the Internet, or what is even scarier, they don't care about world events at all.

Q. What are your thoughts of the free papers distributed in cities?

A. Well, I've written for a few of them. They are advertising driven, but then so are MSM papers. It's all about revenue. You got it, you have room to publish it. I just think the MSM has lost touch with their readership and will go down as a lost cause. At least in my area, most folks are moderately conservative. Some even more, yet the News media continues to support left wing ideas. This, I'm afraid will kill journalism before economics does. It's all about representing those that you serve.

Q. What is the book you would like to write?

A. I would like to write a disaster novel based in my neck of the woods. Having said that,I don't believe I have the patience to actually write a book. You are talking about one to two years of research and heavy detail. No, I'll stick to 500 to 1000 word stories that I think are of interest to the public.

Q.  Is there a motto or ethical principle that clarifies your decisions in moments of confusion?
A. Don't deliberately hurt others and be absolutely accurate.

Q. What advice would you give to someone who has just left university and wishes to start in the profession?Switch majors.

End of Interview. This was done when my total blog output was 354. I am now at 1014.
Interview conducted by http://www.whohub.com/bayviewherb