While reading the interview of Margo McCrae by Lauren Bell Thomson, I picked up on something that we had talked about during our interviewing workshops in class.
The first thing I noticed was that Bell Thomson allowed McCrae to answer the questions as she wished, even if that meant going off on a tangent. Bell Thomson did not interrupt, which is something we all agreed should be avoided.
However, I believe that Bell Thomson could have strayed from her prepared questions. It was very obvious that she was reading from a script and she could have created impromptu questions to feed off of the information that McCrae was telling her. The interview seemed disjointed and Bell Thomson was asking questions at the wrong time. For example, Bell Thomson asks McCrae what she would have done differently in her life. This question would have fit better if it had been asked before the previous question. At this point, McCrae was talking about how she wanted to be a lawyer, but that she got married instead.
I think that our class can learn from this. We should have prepared questions in order to find out specific material. However, if the interview takes an interesting turn, it may be necessary to formulate new questions. Just something to think about.
J.B.