I have my own little desk in the office! It's very exciting. I've never had experience in broadcast outside of the classroom, so I was thrilled when they accepted my application.
My role is to help the reporters and producers anywhere they need me. Most days, I do research for whatever story we happen to be covering that hour. I'll look for background information, read as many news articles as possible, and constantly monitor the various news channels.
The main story since I started has been the WikiLeaks trial, since Julian Assange was first hiding in London. He then turned himself in to the police station to be arrested on Swedish rape allegations. Since then, he has had a few court dates to determine whether or not he would be granted bail until the hearings for his extraditions, which won't even begin until Jan. 11.
My first week included a day where I went to the court to get footage and interviews as people went in and out of the courthouse.
I've never seen anything like it. It was arguably the biggest story in the world on that day, so there were representatives of the media from all over the world. We were there alongside the BBC, CNN, Sky News, and much more. The photo above came from the following day's issue of the Guardian. I would be somewhere just to the left of the photo.
My first thought was that it was a lot friendlier than I had imagined. I pictured each network pushing each other farther back and keeping secrets to try to get ahead of the rest of the networks. Instead, people were quite friendly, sharing rumours about what was happening in the courtroom and allowing each other to get the shots they need.
I mentioned this revelation to Tom, our radio correspondent, and he told me this would all change when someone important walked out the court doors. And boy, he was right.
If my memory is correct, journalist John Pilger was the first one to walk out the doors. Immediately, people began pushing each other, trying to get the best shot and to ask their questions ahead of everybody else. One cameraman fell backwards right off his ladder, and yet people continued to push. It was like being in the middle of a mosh pit at a punk show, but with extremely valuable equipment all around me.
It was unlike anything I've ever seen before, but it was a ton of fun, and I'm hoping I'll get to go out on more shoots soon. Since then, I've mostly been in the office researching, though I'd still really enjoyed it. When Assange was back in court for a bail hearing this week, I was responsible for finding out what was happening inside the courtroom and passing it on to our journalists and CBC Toronto. I found some Twitter accounts for people tweeting from inside (despite the judge's Twitter ban) and I became one of the main sources for updates for the other people in the office.
There are very quick deadlines. Last week, one of our journalists who does the live hits was running late due to traffic. Therefore, I had to find the information she needed and write up a script within 20 minutes so that she could arrive and go straight to reading it off the teleprompter.
Also last week, I was investigating into the "cyber attack" group, Anonymous, to try to figure out how it works and why they were conducting denial of service attacks on companies that were against WikiLeaks. For example, Visa and MasterCard refused to let people use their credit cards to make donations to WikiLeaks, so Anonymous sent enough traffic to the website to temporarily bring it down. It was definitely an interesting method of protesting, and it made me happy that my old habit of hanging out on IRC actually became useful!
Another fun bit about working at the CBC London Bureau is the location. We're located right off of Oxford Street, one of the busy shopping areas. Any store you could possibly need is along that street somewhere, and it's right above the Central Line, making it very accessible. My only complaint is the crowds.
Every day, I walk along Oxford Street to the Oxford Circus tube station, and there are always hundreds of people there.
Above is a photo of the crowd trying to squish their way down the stairs to enter the tube. I always have to squeeze into the crowd, making my way onto an overcrowded platform to enter a completely full train. I'll never again complain about the crowds on the Toronto subway. Although I probably will.
Other highlights from work: On Friday, we had an office Christmas party. The office was decorated with lights and a Christmas tree, and I got a chance to socialise with my coworkers outside of office hours. Everyone has been super friendly, and I'm really glad to be working there. It's a great newsroom, and hopefully it'll help get me involved with the CBC when I get back to Canada!
I also got to cover a Druid ritual on Saturday for a story about the winter solstice, which will be on Monday's episode of the Current. I went to Avebury Henge where I interviewed some Wiccans and Druids, and got some tape of their ritual for the show. It was definitely an exciting adventure.
More in the next post! For now, I must get my shortbread out of the oven to see if it turned out like shortbread at all.
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