Need input for news report (interview)

Turbidine

Guys,

I hope Boards can help me out once more. A friend of mine is a French journalist and she is in Dublin at the moment gathering information on the economical situation here.
She is looking for volunteers who would be willing to talk to her about the fact that:
- they are trying to sell their house/apartment and are finding it difficult...
- or that they are finding it difficult to repay their mortgage...

DUE TO THE RECENT CRISIS (recession, etc)

If there is anyone who is willing to discuss this topic with her / be interviewed tomorrow (saturday) during the day, can you please reply to this message or send me a private message. Dublin city and thereabouts only.
She is preparing this for the French radio but you don't need to speak French.

No stupid jokes or comments, no messing around - only serious and valid stuff please, she's got no time to waste. This is purely on a voluntary basis, there is no reward or anything to be expected. This is just to help a journalist do her work.

Much appreciated!

EKRIUQ

Turbidine wrote: »

No stupid jokes or comments, no messing around - only serious and valid stuff please, she's got no time to waste. This is purely on a voluntary basis, there is NO REWARD or anything to be expected. This is just to help a journalist do her work.

I found this quote about the French

The French are sawed-off sissies who eat snails and slugs and cheese that smells like people's feet. Utter cowards who force their own children to drink wine, they gibber like baboons even when you try to speak to them in their own wimpy language.
- - - P.J.O'Rourke

So why would I waste my time with your uninviting stupid impression of people who post in this forum.

Turbidine

Well obviously if the only thing that you found to say about the French is this, you never made the effort to actually get to know them. Thank God there are people who are more open-minded than you here.

I've posted here for a while and I know that there are sometimes answers that just don't have anything to do with the initial subjects hence my comment. It has nothing to do with having a general impression of people posting on this forum, I was helped on other subjects by great people - if I had thought that people only post useless comments I wouldn't have posted in the first place. But thanks for wasting MY time.

XJR

In fairness the poster only wasted your time because you rose to the bait.

Turbidine

Guys can we stick to the initial subject here.
We'd really need someone who can help today so I hope someone can get back to me.
Rising to the bait ? I don't think it's more intelligent to let people say just anything or everything either.

SimpleSam06

XJR wrote: »

In fairness the poster only wasted your time because you rose to the bait.

It wasn't much of a bait, in fairness, its pretty valid to ask people to keep it on topic in a web forum. OP, you might want to plan ahead a bit more tbh, not many people would be willing to give up their Saturday afternoon on notice of a couple of hours, even to meet a no doubt delightful French journalist (I have a lot of time for the French )

Turbidine

Thanks!

Well she was here all week but couldn't find anyone who was willing to testify - agencies wouldn't give her contacts (which makes sense), so this forum really is a last resource.

She won't need a whole afternoon, just a half hour max. I was thinking that people usually travel to the city centre to go shopping on a Saturday afternoon, so they may be willing to meet her then.
But I'm sure if there are people willing to help who are not travelling to the city centre she can go meet them elsewhere as long as it's not too far and not in dodgy areas.

SimpleSam06

Maybe just have a run through the threads on the forum, there are a few people in that position asking for help, PM them and ask them to do a phone interview.

Turbidine

Thanks Sam - I may try that but I wonder - is it not too intrusive to ask for an interview when they are asking for help (and are obviously in trouble)...I don't know if I would want to hear from a journalist if I was in such a situation...they'd probably be the last person I would want to talk to...Ah well, I might give it a go - thanks for the tip!!

johnnyskeleton

Namesco makes a good point - you can't come looking for help and then insult people. If you want help you should be courteous and try to be as unobtrusive as possible.

Also, any journalist worth their salt will know that you have to ask a lot of questions to a lot of people before you get what you want, especially if what you are looking for is a particular response (e.g. I can't sell my house, it's terrible, I can't pay my mortgage it's terrible) rather than actually going out there and seeing what things are like for the average punter (e.g. I just sold my house last week but I had to reduce the price to sell it, I'm a teacher so my mortgage is manageable etc).

Turbidine

You'll have to tell me where I have been insulting people. Like I said, I've been helped on countless occasions through this forum otherwise I wouldn't be asking for help again (even though it's not for me this time).
The "danger" when mentionning journalists is that we could get people who have nothing to say and who just want to be interviewed "for the fame of being on a radio" (yes there are people like that). There's no time for this. I was just making this point clear. I don't see how this could be insulting anyone but once again that's off topic.

She went around yesterday and rang at doors where there was a For Sale sign, unfortunately houses were usually empty and she couldn't find someone who could talk about the situation. The point is not that she's looking for a specific kind of answer without having done any research : she interviewed agencies who told her that it's more difficult to sell so she didn't make the situation up, apparently that's what it is! She now just needs the view of someone who is trying to sell on top of the agency's interview saying that it's difficult to find people who will buy.

Turbidine

She found someone - thanks to those who responded. I believe this thread can now be deleted, it's of no use to keep it.