Week 3: All about gender and interviews

Archived English Discussions Collaboration
#62
  • How can broadcasters prepare for an interview with someone with specific knowledge such as a extension officer, a researcher, a gender specialist, the head of a farmers’ organization?
  1. Research - research for some information. The only way to come up with good questions is to know everything there is to know about your subject.
  2. Contact the person you wish to interview - Ask when a good time would be to do the interview. Be polite.
  3. Read over your research and brainstorm a list of some questions - The more specific your questions are, the better. And never ask questions that can be answered with a simple Yes or No.
  4. Come prepared - bring with you a pencil, notebook, list of good questions and recording device.
  5. Be on time - Arrive at your interview with plenty of time to spare. There is nothing more unprofessional than a reporter who is late.
  6. Conduct the interview in an organised and timely manner - During the interview, you should be courteous to the subject, always take time to ask for an explanation about things you don’t understand, don’t be afraid of uncomfortable silences and pauses, let the interview take its natural course, look the person in the eye when asking questions, always listen carefully to the answers, don’t read through your questions one right after another like you can’t wait to be finished, also take notes on what the person looked like, what the person was wearing, where he or she sat (The object people surround themselves with hold important clues to their personalities.
  7. Even if you are recording an interview, take Notes - Don’t try to write every word said but just take down the highlights.
  8. Review your research and your interview Notes - Circle or highlight quotations that you think will be good for your radio program. Now you’re ready to begin script writing
#63
  • How can a subject matter specialist prepare for a radio interview?
    Radio interviews are an exciting opportunity to have your voice be heard and to help your organisation be noticed bit it can be daunting experience if not adequately prepared.
  1. Know your medium - The nature of a radio interview delivers a one - on - one experience for the listener and to connect with your audience, you must to talk to, not at them.
  2. Know your message - you should have a clear and concise message for successful interview.
  3. Ask for topic and questions in advance - this will help to research further on the subject matter before being interviewed.
  4. Don’t oversell - Although you have a particular purpose for your interview, it is important not oversell yourself
  5. Headphones - remember to relax, as this will help you to remain focused as you hear the host’s voice and your own through headphones during the interview
  6. Visual gestures - smile and use hand gestures during the interview. This energy Will be translated into your voice and make you sound more natural.
  7. Provide bio - Send your bio and other information to your interviewer in advance. This will ensure that the host has a clear understanding of who you and your business are.
  8. Cheat sheet - prepare a cheat sheet of keys points for your interview. This will help you to deliver your message and avoid getting side-tracked.
  9. Avoid jargon - Use simple language that your audience will understand and connect with. Jargon will only complicate the message and isolate listeners.
#64

I am very sorry for joining the team late. Pending the discussion for week-3, to ensure success for participatory radio program, collaboration stands at the center piece for the realization of the program outcome. You can not design a radio program for specific purpose and leave out the expert individual and institutions . You need to collaborate from the design of the program, audience information, relevant topics to suit the listener , production and evaluation.
During the Ebola break in Liberia 2014, I had a radio program that provided update about the disease weekly. This was the peak of the farming season in Liberia and most farmers abandoned their farm as a result of the disease spread.

A group of women under the banner Rural Women Farmer Cooperative (RWFC) developed the resilience to continue farming while creating awareness on the prevention of the Ebola.

For the purpose of my radio program , I saw this group as strategic partner to collaborate with when it comes to helping farmers stay well from the virus while continuing with their farming activities . I occasionally visited the women’s farm and conducted field interviews that other farmers that abandoned their farmers could listen and get inspire to return .

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#65

Welcome @jeff1

It is better to be late than not join at all. We are glad you are here and thanks for your contribution and sharing of experiences.

#66

Inclusion of women in the programing

Women mostly does much of the farm work at house hold level therefore this type of people need to be treated in a special way .

For example in the agri- programing women also should be given enough time, but this cant just happen from the blues intstead there must be procedures to follow;

In the program women must be identfied as farmers and not as farmer wives for they mostly does much of farm work.
They must be show casing their own success stories in agriculture
Women shold be asked to give time when they are able to listen to the program
Their voices should also be used in the program rather that using malevoices only.
When you go out doing interviews make sure you get time and place where women can be open enough to dish out their views rather than doing together with men farmers.
When you host a live phone inn program , make sure you introduce aspecial phone inn for women this might help in avoinding men dominance.
Preparing for the interview
To the interviewer
first of all make sure you have the topic in hand,
do some research on the topic and about the source
make sure you draft the quesitions
dress to suit the enivironment
maintain eye contact
start with arapport
book your source in time
Be time consious
Interview preparation by the guest
They must have the topic of discussion at hand,
.They must also do some research on the topic
Collaboration and gender issues

Collaboration and Gender during our programing moght be seen first by:

Allowing women giving out their views dujring agri programs
Allowing women to pa aciksit to the station
Giving them chance some times to be expert farmers and
Finally wen the station introduces Gender policies and impliments them.
#67

I have the same problem here at Ejura and it environs and what I normally do is to separate the Muslim women from the men but before I do that I have to seek permission from the men so that the discussion can go on. And it helps

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#68

Rosemond9600,

That’s wisdom applied. We can’t leave them out of our work. We must strive to do whatever we can, to harvest relevant information for empowering those who know nothing about gender issues.

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#69

Dear Busi,

There are so many gender related organisations even in the rural areas, however, we tend to have those programs called Amaka-meaning family life education where we invite marrieds, couples, lovers to participate in the programs and share their stories.

For that particular program that i did with that lady, was about how her farming family was poor, all the proceeds are controlled by her man, children left with nothing. She said the man decided to go into sugarcane and hired out the biggest portion of the land for sugarcane growing to the out-growers leaving the family with almost no land for growing food. Actually, it was a mistake we made not to invite the man too to studio. But they rarely honor our invites if they get to know that it is to do with families. Now we have grown our capacities to handle and balance in the programs. It was those days.

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#70

Thank you GiftMalambo for your contribution. These are strong points.

However, i do not think sending your Bio to the interviewee is necessary. May be it depends on the expert you are going to interview.
When we get to field we come down to their levels like the farmers. Why send a Masters’ Degree or portfolio to a simple farmer?!. Also, you may send a Bio stating your academic level of education say, a certificate or diploma when you are to interview a professor. A friend of mine told me that one Doctor refused to be interviewed by some young man thinking a diploma holder did not have the capacity to interview him on the subject matter. However, it is not about qualification or age, but being knowledge on the subject.

#71

Hello Smawerere,
Thank you for your response to my post on - point 7 which reads “provide Bio - send your bio and other information to your interviewer in advance. This will ensure that the host has a clear understanding of who you and your business are”. The topic on hand is - How can a subject matter specialist prepare for a radio interview?

Smawerere, Before I respond to your point of view, can we first of all agree to the meaning of following terms in context of the above topic.

  1. Interviewer - a person who interviews someone, reporter or journalist
  2. Interviewee - the person who answers the questions during an interview
  3. Host - is the person (journalist) who introduces the topic to be discussed and the interviewee on Radio or TV.
  4. Bio - short biographical profile of someone. In this case, we are talking about job description.
  5. Specialist - a person who concentrates primarily on a particular subject or activity, a person highly skilled in a specific and restricted field.
    Now, Smawerere, do you agree with the meaning of the above terms. If you do! Then, lets proceed. I will try to rephrase the statement so that it is more clear.

Point - 7. Provide Bio (job description) - the person being interviewed (interviewee) should send or give the reporter (interviewer) his/her job description (or business card) and other information in advance before the interview. This will help to ensure that the journalist (host) has a clear understanding of who you (guest or interviewee who is a specialist) are and your business are.

You may ask, why such an answer? Well, the topic is - How can a subject matter specialist prepare for a radio interview? Who is a specialist in this case of the subject matter? We earlier said that a specialist is a person who concentrates primarily on a particular subject or activity or a person who is highly skilled in a specific and restricted field. In this sense, we are talking about specialist in agricultural matters such as agriculturist, agronomist and other professional. How can they prepare themselves before being interviewed. Those points I raised earlier are some of them that a specialist should embrace all heatedly before being interviewed for smooth and successful interview.

Smawerere, I do understand your point of view, the points you have raised are very much valid but you have based them in a situation where the reporter (interviewer) is the one sending the Bio to the interviewee instead of the other way round.

In short, I meant that the interviewee should give his/her job description to the interviewer before interview is conducted.

As much as you may not like it, it is important to carry out a personal interest in knowing the age group, status call in society, knowledgeable, profession or job title, gender and other information of your interviewee because it will help you (reporter) to prepare and handle the interview professionally.

I hope I have made myself clear. Thanks in advance

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#72

Thanks @smawerere

Gender issues need to be handled with care. I would like to share with everyone this week’s Barza Wire resource on Tips on addressing gender equality in your farmer program

This is part one, other parts will be shared on other issues of Barza Wire.

#73

My name is Benjamin K Homadzi from Lorlornyo Fm in Hohoe.
Please our place here, the gender aspect is a big problem. Due to our culture that the man is the head, the women don’t want to participate when the men are around. So we are finding it difficult to use the gender in our farmer program. Please what should we do.

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#74

Have a conversation with the men for them to understand the important and benefit their women will aquire during field work. And when the opportunity is given to you try to separate the women from the men during field discussion.

#75

Benjamin K homadzi from lorlornyo fm in hohoe , that is my contribution

#76

The discussion about Gender have been so good and interesting.
I would like to put up my learning on gender programs. I came to learn that women when they have created ownership of the program from the begining is when they will open up and feel free to participate into the program.

They are very talented with different formats which are good spices into our programs,like songs,poems,dramas etc. You will find broadcasters miss traditional songs or relevant music to the farmers and use Bongo flava’s and annoy farmers as a result they won’t listen to the farmer program

The most important to them is to respect them, give them the enough time to learn from them when you visit them at the rural,rather than you arrive and start discussions or interviews take time with them.

Most of broadcasters fails to involve women into the programs ,for the reason that they fear or don’t open up, may be we skip to harmonize with the.

The topic is about gender and I have been saying about women . Into the program we both! Women and Men,but you find that women are left behind.

Let us ensure that even them are included.
Thanks

#77

Hi Benjamin, as concerns your case you need to have a strategic plan carefully draft to help change the mindset of the men where you resite. You must be mindful and understand how to relate with the people to balance up.

#78

Thank you for sharing with everyone the weeks Barza Wire resource on addressing gender equality in our farmer programmes.This will go a long way into building our capacity as Broadcasters in handling Gender issues in our programmes. At the end of this course, Kapchorwa Trinity Radio-KTR 94.1 FM will register positive changes, in the weekly farmer programme.
RASHID

#79

@BenjaminHomadzi. Gender issues in radio broadcast and programming are geared towards ensuring both males and females are given equal opportunity to participate in any given activity.
Changing attitudes and behavior in a society is a process and not an event. In your situation patience and perseverance are required. You need to adopt an approach that would build trust for you and the different sexes and as time goes on the change would come but steadily.
You could achieve this by having a discussion on gender roles with male farmers and female farmers separately first and then a mixed group.
From these discussions, the males and females would appreciate each other roles and you highlight how nice it would be for both to partner and contribute to the discussion as time might not always allow for a separate engagement.
Some men are afraid of empowered women, so let the men understand it is for their own good to have their women empowered as the world is moving in that direction and they can not afford to be left out in the benefits thereof.
By your name you are a male so you could also try engaging the women using a female colleague and as trust is built you withdraw the female colleague and carry on with the project.
In most communities now we have women leaders " Magaziyas" and Queen mothers. These people could also assist if you first contact and explain to them to get their buy-in and endorsement.
Always ensure you have both sexes represented in your programs and activities.
There was this project to empower women fish-mongers and traders along the coastal belt. The project implementers maybe did not understand gender very well and understood gender to mean women only.
They resourced the women with funds to expand their operations. They did not engage the fisher-men or gave them any assistance. The men therefore, assumed the women now had more money and increased the prices of fish by 100%. This was how the project failed because the women could not afford the increase in price. Had the men were involved it would have been a different story and maybe a successful project.
In gender programs and activity tact and trust-building are required to establish a relationship and cooperation among the sexes.

#80

Mikepac715, I read your contribution and found good tips on how broadcasters can prepare interview with someone with specific knowledge such as an extension officer. Lets all try to use these tips.

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#81

Rashid Muzungyo are my names, from Kapchorwa Trinity Radio, Here is My other contribution on, what kind of collaboration is necessary to make sure radio programs address gender issues and include women? Do you have any examples from your own work you can share?
Multi-sectoral collaboration is necessary to make sure that radio programmes address gender issues and include women. Non Government, individual farmers, Government agencies like the departments of agriculture, veterinary, commerce, religious organizations and farmers should collaborate to ensure that voices of women are included during radio programmes.
While implementing the Forest Land Restoration programme, KTR station management and stakeholders in the project area ensured that women voices featured in almost all the programmes. It was always a question, from the station manager demanding to know whether the women voices had been captured before the programme went on air.

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