interviews, ethics and good relationships

thesis journal entry # 12

We talked about ethics in Research class today. And this moved to the realm of The Interview.

We have to be very careful when we do interviews because we would like to get the best data from our informants and since we're going to benefit more from this than they ever will, it's always practical to have a good relationship with the "subjects and objects of your writing."1

I remember the first interview that I really bombed on. It wasn't my first interview with anybody, but I was working for an ambitious portal that wanted to be Everything for the Filipino and required me to write an article a day, and I was just too tired to do the research on electronica and asked Malek (formerly of Rubber Inc, currently of Sweetspot and Sound) to be interviewed by me on the spot and I said, "So tell me, what is it you do?" Which of course pissed him off and he was mean to me the entire hour we sat down to talk after my coercing him during the launch party of some I-don't-remember-what-anymore. After that, I never went unprepared to another interview again. And when I see him, I just duck whenever there's the slightest chance we might make eye contact and hope he doesn't recognize me, or better, remember me anymore.

But, in general, and when it concerns ballet especially, I have really good rapport with my informants. After I wrote my undergrad thesis, I had somehow become known to the dance world as the Denisa Reyes expert, and I feel so cool whenever Denisa sees me and is so happy to. I feel cooler when she's trying to get me to work with her. I wish I had taken that opportunity then, it would have been a good learning experience, among other things. But no, I would not quit my sell-out jobs for my art, yet. That had to come much much later.

After Malek, I guess I've been in good graces with everyone I've ever interviewed. Which is good because I'm going to have to be doing a lot of interviews for my thesis. And God knows I need to be in good terms with everyone for what I plan to do. Aaaaah.

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1 Mirano, Elena, from a lecture in class today. 2

2 This footnote is because as part of our ethics lecture, she told us to cite everything that doesn't belong to us and it would be dangerous to fail to. It's called plagiarism, baby. I'm merely practicing.