When going for an interview, you need to prepare yourself thoroughly. This is the case whether you are an experienced journalist or just at the beginning of your career.

Here are ten useful tips to make interviewing easier and help you achieve your interview goal.

1. Brainstorming / mind mapping

What do you already know about the person or the topic that your interview is going to be about? In order to get clear about this, it is best to do some brainstorming. Write down everything that comes to your mind when you think of the topic or the person. It’s a good idea to write the topic or name of the interviewee in the center of the page and arrange the ideas all around it in bundles. This is called mind mapping.

Thaweeporn Kummetha at the FoME Symposium in Bonn, Photo by Julia Wegenast

A lively and relatively open culture of online debate has evolved in many Asian countries in recent years – unencumbered by technical restraints and (seemingly) beyond the grasp of press censorship. That’s what Internet activist Thaweeporn Kummetha says. She’s an online editor for Thai Netizen Network (TNN).

Kummetha took part in a panel discussion entitled “Security Threats in the Digital Era” at the 2011 FoME conference in Bonn in late October. She reported that people in Thailand have been using their new digital freedom of opinion and information strongly, even excessively in recent years – in social media, as well as blogs and web forums.

Governments attempt to control the net

When the Thai monarchy came under “online fire” in 2007, the legislature was quick to react: it was already illegal to offend the monarchy (lèse majesté), but now the administration fortified this law with a new Computer Crime Act. (You can find an unofficial translation here by the international blog network Global Voices.)

The censors hoped the Computer Crime Act would help them control the Internet and online debates. But despite the sweeping threats of punishment the new law contains, it didn’t quite have the desired effect.

At the FoME symposium, Kummetha described one unexpected effect the law has had on Thailand’s online community. She said that it has become commonplace even among private citizens to sue one another for slander, libel or endangering national security on the basis of the Act on Computer Crime.

As Kummetha explains in this interview, Thailand’s blogosphere and social networks have become a battlefield.

By Patrick Benning

Media rights advocate Supinya Klangnarong from Thailand spoke during a panel discussion on advocacy versus objectivity at this year’s Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany. The three-day conference in June focused on the role of the media in the context of human rights and globalization.

Klangnarong is vice-chair of the Campaign for Popular Media Reform (CPMR), a national NGO working towards the democratization of communication. She is also a board member of the Thai Netizen Network, an independent network of Internet citizens working to uphold cyber liberty in Thailand.

At this year’s Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum, which took place from June 20-22 in Bonn, Germany, sustainable development expert Mohan Munasinghe recommended that the media help spread the word to the world’s elite that it’s in their own interest to limit consumption and allow the poor to grow out of their poverty. In terms of resources, the “more the rich consume, the less there is for the poor,” he said. Otherwise the entire global system is at risk of collapse with unforeseen consequences for everyone.

As vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Mohan Munasinghe shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007. Currently he is chairman of the Munasinghe Institute for Development (MIND) in Colombo, a professor of sustainable development at the University of Manchester in the U.K., a distinguished guest professor at Peking University and honorary senior adviser to the government of Sri Lanka. He is widely recognized as having introduced a framework called sustainomics to make development more sustainable.

Once again the Berlin International Film Festival, also known as the Berlinale, has become the focus of filmmakers and movie buffs from around the world. Every year, DW-AKADEMIE conducts a five-week workshop centered around the red-carpet event. Called “Film Festival and Event Management”, the workshop spotlights young film festival managers from Asia and Africa.

Two of this year's 12 participants are Luzviminda Casagan from Pasay City, the Philippines, and Arthur Mataruse from Cape Town, South Africa. Casagan works for the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival, Mataruse for Encounters and the Out in Africa film festivals. We spoke to both of them to find out more about film festivals and filmmaking in their home countries.

How would you describe the importance of films in cinema and television in your home country?

Arthur Mataruse (pictured left): For us, films mainly have the function to strengthen the culture and the common identity in South Africa. Our aim is also to show other cultures and lifestyles.

Luzviminda Casagan: In the Philippines, fewer and fewer people are going to the cinema. One reason is that it is now easier to get films on DVD or from the Internet. Consequently, it's becoming more difficult for filmmakers to distribute and sell their films. Our aim with the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival is to support young Philippine filmmakers whose films provide new insights and pursue new concepts, especially when that promotes art and culture.