Chasing Leads and Sources

My partner Cassidy and I chose to do our story on Red Cross blood donations. One of the most important objectives we and Lamble (2011, pp. 127) had was to have an official and reliable source of information. The most reliable source was finding someone from the Red Cross itself. Initially finding the phone number was not hard. I went onto the website site and gave it a call. I found that as soon as I ended my introduction of myself I was politely transferred straight away to a different person. This happened about four times until I reached Sally Gavin, the PR representative for the Red Cross Blood Drive. She was extremely helpful on the phone, asking what kind of person I was after. Was I after a donor? Or was I after a particular expert. After explaining my case and what kind of information I asked, she nominated herself as being the right person for the job. First interview booked and organised.

After the first interview with Sally Gavin, we derived questions from there. We listened to her answers and found the lead we wanted to go with. Which lead us to deciding who we should interview next and what we should interview them about.

For my second source, acquiring an interview with someone was a lot harder. I decided to contact Sally again to see if it was possible to acquire a blood donor through her but unfortunately she was too busy to find one. After talking to a few different people I tried to find a regular donor or someone who needed a blood transfusion. The first girl I contacted had needed a blood transfusion for a heart operation she had. Unfortunately after the initial contact she was unreachable after that. Perhaps she was too uncomfortable to speak on camera about her operation. The person I contacted next was very helpful and I quickly organised an interview with her.

References

Lamble, S 2011, News As It Happens: An Introduction To Journalism, Oxford, New York.