Analysis of an interview from The Metro Herald, 1/2 [WK1, SEMESTER2]

The Metro Herald contains a feature towards the back of the paper, entitled ':60 second interview' whereby the journalist is given the task of interviewing someone of note and editing it down to create a very condensed yet information packed piece.

The function of interviewing is to uncover exclusive, brand new information and to confirm unestablished facts. The questions asked should always focus on the person's future endeavours. I don't think the interviewer, Elaine Lipsworth was successful in doing this as she dwelled too much on past events and failed to properly question Hudgens on her up-coming movie —Journey 2: The Mysterious Island or even ask about any up-and-coming projects in general. 

Instead, she opted to pose light-hearted, silly questions to the actress which leads me to believe that Lipsworth was not really familiar or didn't bother reading up about Hudgens before undertaking the task of interviewing her.

The information obtained throughout this interview was information that could have been collected by attending a press conference and it's not really exclusive and so it's not really interesting. Had Lipsworth posed some more daring or difficult questions, she would have produced a much better interview and probably would have been able to get a news story out of it too. 

I'm inclined to think that the interview was done on Hudgen's terms and that perhaps the questions were provided to her team in advance, meaning that Hudgens decided for herself how she wanted to be portrayed in the piece —perhaps she picked those questions in order to humanize herself and to show people that she's just a 'normal person' like the rest of us.