Meeting 14

This week my meeting took place in the usual setting and usual time but this time my meeting was primarily with reporter Elizabeth Fish.

This week we decided on three stories I should look into:

1. A  busker feature- This week I saw a new busker performing near the Stonegate area. This one dresses up as night and any donation goes to the national trust. As far as I can tell the gentlemen is in town on a Saturday. One of the difficulties I find with interviewing buskers is they are hard to track. As Sharon Wheeler writes they may be considered to be quite underground 'certain organisations and sections of the community are rarely represented in routine ring-arounds.'

2. Exotic Pet shops- Elizabeth drew my attention to the exotic pet shops in Lincoln, in total their are two. I've been asked to go to these shops and obtain close up photos of the most bizarre animals. This will be a good photo story. However this story does prevent a sense of fear for me. It could be said I have quite a strong aversion to spiders and since they are classed as exotic pets I may well encounter one and have to be up close to it to obtain a photograph. This story may involve some unique preparation in which I attempt to become more accustomed to the appearance of a spider. This will help me conform to Sharon Wheelers feelings about how a journalist should conduct themselves during an interview 'it's absolutely vital to go into the interview as well prepared as you can and to keep your cool.'

3. Shadowing the fire services whilst they perform special training- Every so often the fire service go to the Brayfood pool and perform various drills to prepare themselves for water based rescues. I plan to shadow them throughout this period and see what they do. This also a good chance to build up contacts and help to build up a relationship of trust. As Sharon Wheeler says it's long road to build these contacts up 'You won't get the scoop every time, and it can take eighteen months to really get your face known in the area, but gradually contacts come to trust you.'

This week I have huge variety of stories. Most of which I wouldn't necessarily dress in the same way. Mainly because for the emergency services story is more hands on and I may have to wear older clothes which I wouldn't mind getting dirty. For the knight story I would go in something casual and relaxed but formality may put the busker at an unease. For the exotic pets story it may be suitable to go dressed in a long sleeve shirt if I am going to in contact with the animals especially of they have claws.

Though all these thoughts are practical I should not forget the primary objective when dressing for an interview which is to put the interviewee at ease. Chris Frost writes that 'you need to be appropriately dressed with the tools of your trade-notebooks, recorders or cameras discreetly out of sight. You should not be smoking, chewing gum or doing anything else that is likely to spark an adverse reaction.'