and safety of a special dam they will try to interview the engineer responsible, as their knowledge and function mean they are the person who can deliver the most accurate and in depth information – what is not important is he became an engineer. • However in the second interview form how he became an engineer could be more interesting: the person-centered interview. Here the guest is focused on what he has done, his life, what he has achieved. In the case of the engineer this would for example be an interview named “My dream job”. The recipient would get to know why the profession of engineer is so interesting for him as a person. However, the same discussion with the engineer and a career consultant would be a topic-centered interview again. Survey
B Lesson 3
The survey is a typical journalistic instrument, to generate a certain number of opinions and sentiments, for example to get a greater range of positions on a particular topic. Thus, a survey is normally included within different formats and is only very rarely used as an independent element – one exception to this rule is the spoof survey, which is not intended to convey any depth. With regards to content often used to represent a general opinion, the survey can be adapted to break up different radio and TV formats, to illustrate a certain thesis or to facilitate a casual introduction into a topic. There are no boundaries as to what can be asked for in a survey: political questions like “What do you think about the Prime Minister?”, questions that refer to daily life such as “What would you change about your district?” or questions like “What’s the name of Europe’s longest river?” to test general knowledge and so forth. A basic rule for surveys is that the topic should be newsworthy or controversial, profound or amusing. Do not do a survey if the recipient can already think of the answer beforehand. 131