TV Star Interviews

Today, I conducted a brief interview with Steve Arnold, star of the Science Channel television show "Meteorite Me." The season premier of the third season of the show is tonight (November 28) at 10:00 p.m. and both Steve and his cohost Geoff are looking to remind old fans and alert potential new fans of that fact.

I had spoken with Steve last year, as well, and published several fairly popular articles about the show. Today's interview ended up being published on three Yahoo! web properties: Associated Content, Yahoo! News, and Yahoo! TV. It'll be interesting to compare the popularity of the three separate web locations of the same article.

Celebrity interviews are examples of going straight to the source for information. From a journalism perspective it's the same as interviewing the victim of a crime or other person with first-hand knowledge of an event or topic. Celebrities with something to promote may be easier to get as interview subjects because they also benefit by granting the interview as long as they get their plug into the interview. When the topic of the interview and the event being plugged coincide, such as an article about the season premier of a television show, everybody wins.

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Meanwhile, as per my last post, I'm still working on discussing the situation on the streets in Egypt with people who live there. I was surprised, although I shouldn't have been, that the first two people I contacted essentially refused to speak about it, saying they didn't know anything about it. I suspect that they simply didn't feel safe discussing their feelings about the current political situaion in Egypt.

Live, From the Revolution

There are people who are qualified experts on the political happenings of various places around the world, because the study of that place is central to their work. They can offer valid and valuable insight into the events, the causes, and key players in major events within their sphere of expertise. My discussion with David Patel of Cornell University who specializes in Middle East politics and political culture was invaluable in helping to sort out the key players in the protests that resulted in the ouster of Hosni Mubarek from Egypt, for example.

At the time, he told me, "A lot of people have incentive to make sure the military comes out, as a whole, in a strong position, economically, perhaps even more importantly than politically." That statement has proven to be quite accurate as the military is now running the country, most recently it appears with as firm an iron fist as Mubarek ever did.

Sometimes, however, the only expertise needed for an accurate assessment is having eyes and ears in the right place at the right time. How do average people living in Egypt see the new regime? How have things changed? Do they feel as if they've had the revolution stolen out from under them? These are questions that can only be answered by the people of Egypt.

Toward that end, I am working on contacting a number of ordinary people who are not only in Egypt right now as a new set of protests threatens the country's stability once again, but who were also present during the first set of protests in January and February of this year.

Banned Books Week Interview

In 2011, Banned Books Week runs from September 24th through October 1st this year. Contrary to popular opinion, book banning and censorship is alive and well in the United States. The only thing that's changed is the language used to describe it. These days, books are "challenged," meaning that some group feels they should be banned from schools or libraries. The challenged books then undergo a review process, but often end up being removed without anyone ever saying that the book was banned.

Another tactic is to just ban part of the book. This can happen when those buying schools books tell the publisher that they won't accept a textbook or literature anthology for use in the classroom unless certain specific changes are made. This can result in rampant and heavy-handed editing of classic works of literature or even changing history itself to make it more politically correct.

I spoke with Joan DelFattore, professor of English and legal studies at the University of Delaware to discuss textbook adoption and classroom censorship that is taking place in high schools at the state level and some of the issues that creates when the kids affected by it reach college.

Here are the links to the three part series of interviews as published at Yahoo! News:

• Textbook Adoption: The New Face of Book Banning
• Do Schools Need National Curriculum Standards?
• Is Your School Board Qualified to Rewrite Shakespeare?

Read them to find out what's going on in the classroom and how three states can effectively dictate what gets included in textboks all across the country.

2001 Anthrax Attacks Remembered

This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. It was just a week after that that letters containing deadly highly purified anthrax spores were sent out to several media outlets in New York City. Those letters were followed up with similar letters to Senators Leahy and Daschle in Washington, DC.

The anthrax spores were so easily spread that postal workers employed in the post offices which handles the letters began contracting anthrax. One woman in Connecticut died after a letter she received from an unrelated source simply came into contact with one of the anthrax letters. In all 5 died, more than 30 were infected, and thousands were medicated as a precaution.

I recently spoke to one of the people responsible for sequencing the genome of the anthrax spores used in the attack to determine its origin for the FBI. I asked her to talk about the investigation and whether we are safer today because of new precautions put in place after those anthrax attacks in 2001. Read the interviews at the following links:

• Are We Safer frm Bioterror attacks after the 2001 Anthrax Letter Attack?
• Investigator Discusses 2001 Anthrax Attacks

View from the top

The subject of my latest series of interviews have climbed to the summit of Mount Everest,but that isn't his primary claim to fame. Scott Parazynski is best known as a veteran NASA astronaut who has travelled 23 million miles aboard five space shuttle missions. He has been on numerous spacewalks totalling 47 hours outside the spacecraft. He was also instrumental in the development of a heat tile repair system to prevent future accidents like the one that claimed Columbia and it's crew.

It was a fun interview, and I was able to cover a lot of groun: from Mount Everest to Mars, so to speak. The first one covers what it's liek to look down from the top of Everest and to look down on the Earth from space. It really changes one's global perspective, Parazynski says. Read more about his feelings about the fragility of Earth at this link.

The second part of the interview dealt with the end of the Space Shuttle program. Parazynski disagrees with the decision to retire the space shuttles before a new crew launch vehicle is available. Read more about this and why he resolved to fly one more time to honor the crew lost in the Columbia accident here.

The third part of the interview is more or less a catch all for everything else that we discussed. What's next for the future of NASA? How does the human body change in the absence of gravity? What are the medical risks of space travel? What do Space Station resident do when a potentially harmful burst of solar flare radiation is heading their way? How does Russian Cosmonaut training differ from NASA astronaut training? If these questions intrigue you, or you're curious about what else I asked, read the third part of  my interview with astronaut Scott Parazynski here.

MTV Anniversary Interviews

A fellow writer, Kimberly Morgan, managed two great interviews on the 30th anniversary of the first MTV broadcast. They used to play music videos and the initials used to stand for Music Television... Those were the good old days. For those like me who remember what MTV was supposed to be or those who don't remember, but are interested, thsese two interviews are highly recommended reading:
Martha Quinn, Voice of the 80's
Nina Blackwood, Still Rocking
Kim did  agreat job securig these interviews in conjunction with the anniversay date. In interviews, like everything else, timing can be very important. Celebrity interviews are great, but when you can wrap them around a piece of timely news like the MTV anniversary, they can be more than just entertainment.

Debt ceiling crisis interview

My latest published interview was with an economist who told me that the debt ceiling crisis was the result of "an accident of history." He also said he thoguht the Tea party had fallen under the spell of groupthink and was unable to see the consequences of their actions. Whatever happens, if the Tea party gets what it wants or if they block the debt ceiling increase, it looks like they will cause a double-dip recession, putting more people out of work in America.

Here's the link to the complete debt ceiling article.
Part 2 of the interview: "How a U.S. government debt default will affect the average American."