People are more accessible online, but does that make them more interesting? What is gained, and what is lost when we can’t see the people who we’re interviewing?

These days, more and more interviews are done by phone and email, but as we’ll see in this lecture, this trend has its dangers as well as benefits. Electronic interviews might be well suited when it’s simply information that is required for a story, but what about when we to probe the subject?

Erdem will also outline some of the challenges journalists face when interviewing people who have a disability, are from a cultural and linguistically diverse background, who have experienced trauma and others.

In the second hour, we'll be joined by David Lowden, who heads the sports journalism degree at La Trobe, and also works for the St Kilda Football Club in advising their communications team.

Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

You've done your research, you've asked the questions, you have your quotes.. now what? This week, Erdem will take you through a step-by-step guide on how to write profile pieces.

He'll also spend some time talking about some of the common mistakes in your first and second assignments.

Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

This week, La Trobe journalism graduate Ben Waterworth joins our class. Ben is currently working as a media manager for the Eastern Football League. He was the sports editor of upstart magazine, where he wrote more than 100 articles in his three years of study.

The best questions from the second assignment were selected, and to put to Ben in this profile interview. Students are expected to write up a profile piece on Ben, designed for upstart.

Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

What are profile interviews and are they really all the same? Who is in control when you do an interview? What are the ethics you must consider? This week, Erdem will introduce profile interviews and suggest ways to approach them.

Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

What are profile interviews and are they really all the same? Who is in control when you do an interview? What are the ethics you must consider? This week, Erdem will introduce profile interviews and suggest ways to approach them.

Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

This week, Erdem workshops some of the drafts sent in by students for the first assignment.

Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

This week, we look more closely at which qualities make up great interviews. Erdem will go through how to write your assignment, as well as some of the basic dos and donts when writing in journalism. He will also draw on case studies illustrating the point of what makes for 'great interviews'.

In the first half hour, we'll be joined by final-year journalism student Tom Morris, who has been working as a football writer for the St Kilda Football Club for the past year. Tom will outline some of his experiences interviewing football players, writing for the club's website and managing its social media accounts.

Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Guest lecture Nick Richardson, who in his role as National Editorial Training Manager at News Corp is responsible for hiring journalists. Nick will go through his life in journalism, which spans across more than 20 years, what he looks for when hiring young journalists, and how different kinds of interviews are used in the development of news and feature stories for print and online. Nick is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Journalism and Strategic Communication at La Trobe University.

Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

In this week's lecture, we go through some of the research skills you'll need to find great interviews online in preparation for the first assignment.

Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

What is interviewing and in what ways is interviewing built into all of our communications? This week, we’ll examine various forms of interviewing, both within the media and outside, focussing on interviews in the media.

Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.