Going Solo: My First Interview

As mentioned in my previous post, not for profit organisations present some fantastic learning opportunities to interns such as myself. Not for profits are typically in need of extra assistance and students will often find themselves with the opportunity to be involved in some quality organisational activities.

During the course of my internship at Baptistcare WA, I was involved in the production of the quarterly newsletter ‘Reaching Out.’ As I was involved in content generation, my supervisor and I would have meetings with various departments to get their wrap of the last few months. I obtained my big opportunity on one occasion when my supervisor was unable to accompany me on a scheduled interview.

My assignment involved paying a visit to a young woman living with Cerebral Palsy who Baptistcare provided assistance to. Subsequently, I needed to form a story to be included in Reaching Out from the interview. Having no knowledge or experience with the issue of Cerebral Palsy, I did not know what to expect. However, I knew that I would be dealing with a sensitive issue and needed to tread carefully.

The interview sailed fairly smoothly. The young woman was confident and outgoing, with quite a story to tell. This made my job of interviewing and forming a story much easier, given that I did not need to probe or provide too much direction to our discussion. As I was hurriedly scribbling away, I could see that the story was perfect material for our newsletter – which exists to inform industry and stakeholders on how Baptistcare is fulfilling its mission. The story was a true example of Baptistcare’s mission in action.

With quite a story to tell and so much scribbled down, I ended up writing a piece that was about double the length my supervisor was looking for. Of course, it’s always better to be over prepared than under and cutting the story down was a piece of cake. As usual with all Public Relations practices at Baptistcare, any direct quotes and images used in my article had to be approved by the subject in writing.

The biggest issue with this assignment, however, was ensuring that the subject of my story was satisfied with her portrayal. The story would be going public to all of Baptistcare’s stakeholders and industry partners, as well as online. It was difficult to get into contact with the young lady given that she was facing some personal issues at the time. This meant that the story had to be pulled from the planned issue of the newsletter. We were not prepared to run the story unless we had absolute confidence that she was satisfied.

Fortunately, my story was published in a later newsletter once we were able to make contact and obtain approval and I now have a record of my first solo interview to place into my portfolio.