In CW these past few weeks we’ve been preparing for the release of our zines, of which there are five differently-themed issues. On top of scouting for cool submissions, we were asked to conduct one interview. First we learned the basics of interviewing: how to stay cool and professional, how to engage, how to sound casual, how to get to the point, etc. Then we took a look at some examples via You Tube. The first one was an example of what to do. We saw a short exchange between Howard Stern and Jay Z, in which they talked about the rapper’s new book. Stern was very comforting and welcoming and the very obviously nervous Jay Z quickly became relaxed and confident.

Then we took a look at what not to do. A grainy video of an interview of Mark Zuckerberg was probably the most depressing thing I’ve seen in a long time. If you can imagine standing on stage and interviewing the most famous technology celebrity on the planet and have EVERYTHING go wrong, this would be that interview. The woman interviewing began off talking quietly to him and giggling, almost like she was flirting with the poor guy. Then, she started telling a story, leaving him nothing to say or do other than nod his head and confirm the story’s truth. Eventually, he got fed up with that and decided it would be best to stare blankly into the woman’s eyes, leaving her blushing and flustered. The following two minutes were an explosion of squabbling and mob-like audience responses that overall left the place in an extreme state of awkwardness. I went home that day and proceeded to watch one million bad interviews.

After days of practice, I felt comfortable with conducting my interview. My subject was a classmate named Floyd, who is famous at school for his eccentricity and creativity (this past Halloween he wore a rag and a mop of hair on his face and went as Jesus.) We talked about the apocalypse for a good twenty minutes and, using our new note-taking techniques, I was able to take good notes and transcribe it into a proper interview. The finished product, along with many other entertaining conversations, will be published in our zines next week.

Liam Miyar-Mullan, class of 2018