Writing an Article

Tuesday wasn't exactly interesting. We had class back in the IPC at Residence Palais (the International Press Center, our usual building, for those who've forgotten since we haven't been there in forever). Our topic of study was, oddly enough, a powerpoint on Media in Europe. What is it like to report Europe?

It made me realize how much I continue to hate reporting, but how much I like European reporting more than American. European-style remains much more relaxed; as relaxed as you can be in a high-tension workzone. There isn't as much emphasis on quote-checking. "Off the record" isn't so "off the record" since you can still technically quote the person. Things of that nature.

We returned to the apartments to finish working on our articles. I conducted interviews with restaurant owners on the way back, all of whom were Italian? One man I spoke with had very broken English, so I switched to French. His French was not much better. Honestly, the women running the Alimentations in the Moroccan district speak better French than he did. And he has a restaurant!

Regardless I got my quote from him, as well as a few more questions to be answered. Writing this article has been a pain, quite frankly. I've been thrown out of restaurants and ignored by bartenders. Greenpeace has "no specialist or campaign about water." WTF? You're Greenpeace! Ah well. I returned to the apartment to sit down and crank out 650 words of copy without a single quote from an average Belgian--if indeed such a person exists in Brussels.

While Lizzi and Nicole were at dinner and Brandon upstairs in his own flat, I diligently worked until satisfied with my single response from Friends of Europe, a green organization. I had quotes and statistics from various UN and EU releases, but I didn't think this would be that difficult. This is an article that, if I truly cared about it, I would have spent a month researching and getting all the information for before writing. It's like a research paper on fast track and in mini-form. The brief before you write the actual paper. Number one reason why I hate reporting; I like time and length and detail.

And that was my ever-exciting Tuesday.