For my coursework I have written two Journalist Interviews for different . The

first interview is with Reverend Martin M who is a pastor of a Baptist Church. The

I am writing for is an adult audience of local people interested in different

forms of Christianity. As the Baptist denomination is relatively small in the area, I

thought Martin would be able to offer a largely unheard view of Christianity. The

might appear in a local magazine or regional newspaper or perhaps in a parish

magazine.

I tried to emphasise Martin's friendliness and his towards his faith. I also tried

to show that the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England aren't the only

denominations of Christianity in spite of their popularity. I tried to keep a positive

and I was helped in this by Martin's 'glass half-full' attitude. I wanted readers to be

encouraged to find out more about the Baptist church.

As part of my research I read Elizabeth Day's interview with Tess Daly (of 'Strictly Come

Dancing') in the Guardian newspaper. From this article I took the idea of beginning the

interview with something 'off-topic' that I would link to the main body of the interview

later. In my article, I began by discussing the predicted extinction of the larger

churches. I was also inspired by an interview by Jan Moir with explorer Bruce Parry in

the Daily Telegraph. In this interview she begins the article with a topic and she returns

to it in the final paragraph. I used this technique in my own piece.

I used throughout implying Martin's level of education, perhaps

instilling a sense of trust in him. In fact Martin had a northern accent but I didn't attempt

to suggest this as I felt that doing so might influence the negatively.

I also rephrased and reordered some passages from the recording to make them easier

for the reader to follow.

In the interview I felt that Martin made many worthwhile and quotable comments so I

decided to use quite a lot of . I thought this would show the reader a more

honest version of my interviewee. Martin is clearly a confident speaker used to speaking

to the public. This is also why I chose to end my interview with something he said

during the interview (“I will continue to thrive”) rather than writing something myself

which may have been less effective.

Generally, I did not include my own comments although at times I chose to include my

question phrased in Free Direct (e.g. “Does this worry him?”). I felt this would

help the reader to feel as though they were also involved in the interview. I thought this

would mirror Martin's desire to get more people involved in church life. Including the

church website's URL also reflected Martin's comments about living 'in a multi-media

age' and the pragmatics of this are that the reader would see that Martin's church would

appeal to churchgoers.

I felt that my interview was successful in presenting the Baptist denomination as an

alternative to the more 'traditional' or popular Christian denominations and if it were

published I think it would stir an interest in the Baptist Church.