Things I’ve learned from interviews

If you have ever had the pleasure to be interviewed by me, then you might be on this list. So, I recommend you get yourself a towel, because I am about to spill some tea.

1. I talk a lot. I found this out after I did my first interview for WSS and over half of the recording was my voice.
2. Don’t ever let Bres get into your interview, because it gets awkward real fast.
3. You might need to tell people to use their words to answer questions. Yeah, I’ve had people make hand movements to answer questions that I had asked.
4. If you compliment the person you’re about to interview and tell them about something bad that happened to you recently, then they’re more likely to open up. Also, you can just reuse the compliment.
5. Don’t ever, ever interview three elementary school girls and their middle school friend at the same time. No amount of Ibuprofen can help you through that headache.
6. That red dot on the person’s nose that you have been interviewing for the last two hours might actually be taco sauce.
7. Adults don’t have everything figured out. Some even have petty Facebook drama.
8. If you want to interview someone, don’t send passive-aggressive messages to them. In particular, don’t let your best friend (@Allie Schmitt-Morris) take your phone and send passive-aggressive messages to them because you might scare the person off.
9. Finally, these are two things you should know before you get interviewed. One, stalking is a reporter’s superpower, so when you come to the interview, we already know everything about you. Two, you should know our names.