The Interviewing Process
As someone who has never had any formal training with interviewing, I found the task incredibly daunting. When the project began, I didn’t feel I had the authority to ask questions about Carol’s life and how she has interpreted her relationship to the work she does. I saw Carol as a distinguished Hollins alum, who I was lucky to even have a few moments with, let alone an intimate block of time. What if I offended her by the way I worded a question? How should I refer to her and the work she does (what she regards as community volunteering)? And what right did I have to go back and look at what she and I had deemed the milestones of her career, and how they have shaped and been inspired by her life experiences? Would I be essentializing her work and story through a process with such specific goals?
Neuroses aside, these concerns escaped my mind in the actual act of interviewing. When you think about it, we interview each other all the time in everyday life without realizing it. This class forced me to think critically about these conversations and how to navigate through Carol’s life story with respect but also a critical eye. Because Carol was so eager to share her stories, it made the process of interviewing much more relaxed than I anticipated. Of course hearing the playback of my voice and mannerisms was torture and I can’t say that I asked the most probing and brilliant questions of all time, but Diane Sawyer should still probably watch out.