Wikinews/Interview of the month

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On 5 December 2005 a group of Wikinews reporters interviewed Jimmy Wales live in the International Wikinews IRC channel with an audience of Wikinews contributors, other Wikimedia Foundation participants, and others unrelated to the projects. It was a large success, and spun off articles in 6 languages as well as being sourced by other news articles.

There were, of course, immediate cries to do this sort of thing again, which is what this page is about: organizing a monthly interview with a news maker live in IRC. People who are interested in being notified of upcoming interviews are encouraged to list a link on the contact list.

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Who?[edit]

Ideally, interview candidates will be people involved with current events, hopefully *very* current! The interview with Jimbo was set up the week before a news event happened which put Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation in the spotlight of mainstream media. That type of luck cannot be relied on, and we should focus on selecting and contacting news makers who will be a valuable interviewee no matter if they become a feature of the mainstream media or not.

Some suggested fields for news makers (by no means exhaustive):

  • Executives of large or pivotal corporations, non-governmental organizations, or governmental branches/departments.
  • Public figures, such as politician or entertainment figures.
  • Researchers/Scientists who have recently published articles with wide ranging implications.

The wikinews edition which is the dominant language for the individual interviewed will be in charge of actually moderating the interview.

When?[edit]

The exact when for each interview will, in part, be determined by the news maker's schedule. The goal would be to have the interview in the first half of the month, if possible the first week. The time of day should be convenient to the interviewee, realizing that some wikinews contributors will be available 24 hours a day.

Questions should be compiled prior to the actual interview, but might not all be used. It will be important to schedule interviews in advance so reporters can do the necessary research before the interview.

Each interviewee should be given a short period of time to speak on a subject of their choice, in addition to a one hour question and answer period, up to a half-hour.

Where?[edit]

The interviews will take place in the International Wikinews IRC channel. This may be accessed via web-browser with cgi:irc.

The goal is to produce opportunities for all Wikinews language editions to be involved in interviews, and produce articles about those interviews in many languages for a world-wide internet audience.

What?[edit]

The interviews will consist of an address by the interviewee, if they'd like, followed by a question and answer session from a moderator. It will be up to each moderator how they would like to set up the questions, but they should work with questions which are prepared before the interview as well as questions submitted to them during the interview by reporters present.

Realizing that a live interview can never be completely scripted, it would probably be best to plan on having only about half of the question time covered by prepared questions and the rest be raised during the interview.

May[edit]

Andrew Westphal project director of Stardust@home has accepted a request for an interview with Wikinews for May 2006.

We will be doing research and developing questions at Wikinews/Interview of the month/May 2006 Questions.

This months Interview will be taking place at: 11:00 a.m. Pacific , May 18, 2006 in the International Wikinews IRC channel (irc://irc.freenode.net/wikinews).

Suggested interviews - July 2006[edit]

Template:Wikinews/Interview of the month/July 2006

Suggested interviews - August 2006[edit]

back +/-

How about Max Goldberg. He is the founder of YTMND.com, which has become somewhat of an Internet phenomena, and acutally helps propagate some Internet phenomena. Plus, they were invovled in somewhat of a legal tiff with the controversial EBaum's World back in Jan/Feb 2006 and just last month was in a sent a cease and desist by the Church of Scientology.

Let's shoot big and go for Noam Chomsky. He is an exceedingly interesting man who is widely known for both his political views as well as his work advancing the field of linguistics. I don't know the process for asking people to be interviewed but being that he is a MIT professor I would imagine he is aware of the Wiki concept(especially since WikiMania) and would be open to it. 75.22.200.190 22:13, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Got some contact details? This sounds like one that could be interesting. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet[edit]

Let's make an interview with someone from the dutch organization "Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet" [1] ("We don't trust in voting machines"). Voting machines from NEDAP, a dutch company are used not only in the Netherlands. It's a political and technical issue.

Suggested interviews - March 2009[edit]

Lonnie Dupre There is online an area to arrange for arranging interviews via telephone and email contact with Expedition Leader, Lonnie Dupre USA, Age 46 Expedition Leader of Peary Centennial North Pole Expedition, March 1, 2009 and ends at the end of April. From the interest in the arctic and global warming he would be interesting and there are many questions to ask of him. There have been other interviews with him regarding his past Arctic expeditions [2] and this current expedition which just started [3]. Read his biography. Would anyone be interested who has previous experience with interviews to help out with this exciting venture? Would anyone interested in Arctic, global warming, or interviews want to help establish questions and be involved?

Interviews are also available with

  • Maxime Chaya, of Beirut, Lebanon - Global adventurer and explorer on trek with the Peary Centennial North Pole Expedition
  • Stuart Smith, of Waco, Texas - Polar adventurer and "Seven Summits" mountaineer on trek with the Peary Centennial North Pole Expedition
  • Rick Sweitzer, of Wilmette, IL - PolarExplorers' founder and Peary-Henson Expedition Logistics Manager arranging information and interviews with above or with himself. SriMesh 03:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See also[edit]