WRAL Interview
I was interviewed today by Kelcey Carlson of WRAL TV, with Courtney Davis as the photographer.
The backstory: it seems that somebody somewhere got in trouble for spending too much of their company hours involved with blogs, and WRAL decided to check into what other companies thought about blogging. As IBM is a major employer in the RTP area, and I seem to be on the short list for IBM bloggers in RTP, my name came up.
Deciding not to do this interview at home, an office was found for me at the park. The whole process took about a half an hour. Before it started, Kelcey took a phone call. It seems that there was some developments on a murder case. Courtney contributes to WRAL’s Under Exposed weblog, but seemed embarrassed to talk about it.
It is amazing watching professionals at work. Kelcey started by asking me a few questions, and when she felt that the ice was broken sufficiently, she nodded to Courtney and the filming started for real. Despite the small office, Courtney moved around a bit to get various angles, shots of my hands on the keyboard, and the like. I usually try to read people to see when I’m talking too technical, but I couldn’t read Kelcey at all.
Questions Kelcey asked included: how often I blogged, what I blogged about, does my manager know about it, what are IBM’s policies, etc. She seemed interested in traffic counts (I didn’t go into the differences between news readers, spiders, and browsers). She asked if I was involved in any controversies, and I said that I try to keep to boring stuff. Considering the types of human drama that a reporter is exposed to, the stuff that goes on here has to be considered absolutely mundane.
She also seemed interested in my nocturnal visitor.
The spot is likely to air on Sunday night, but this being the news business, nothing is set in concrete until the time it airs. At most, the entire spot will be given two minutes, and she is interviewing about a half a dozen people from various companies, so at best I’ll get 15 seconds of local fame, if I don’t end up on the cutting room floor.
Update: I've just been told that the story is now scheduled to air at 6pm tonight.