learning, discerning

So here's my problem.

I think Rtrs is probably one of the best, if not the best, companies I could work for as a journalist. In an economy where the newspaper industry is losing customers and firing writers and getting skinnier broadsheets, where the unemployment rate among journalists is 25 percent, Reuters is expanding. They care about their employees; they have unparalleled access to important figures in the world; they have bureaus EVERYWHERE, and if I worked for them, the list of "Top 10 Countries I Want to Live in" written at the back of my reporter's notebook could easily become a reality instead of just wishful thinking.

So yes, Rtrs is amazing and I would be so lucky as to work for them someday.

But at the same time...I like people more than numbers. I like writing more than injecting data. I care more about what happens to the inhabitants of a country than I do about what happens to its economy.

And I know that really, you can't separate the economy from the news. The markets, the banks, the corporations are the driving force behind basically all major news except for natural disasters. So caring about people means I should care about the global economy that affects them.

I'm learning to care about it, poco a poco, but the more I read, the more I'm fearing that this isn't for me. Facts are important, numbers must be given out up at the top, but in the Rtrs model, there seems to be no time for good writing. Well, that's not fair. All Rtrs journalists are good writers. There's no time for beautiful writing, I should say. No time for creativity. We're not telling a story; we're explaining the numbers.

As always, I'm generalizing. With stories that are not completely finance-focused, Rtrs does an amazing job of weaving a dozen different concepts into one comprehensive idea. Check out some of their coverage on the BP crisis - so many angles, economy-focused and not, and they somehow manage to pull it all together. They did the same for the earthquake here in Chile, and for every other story that has important pieces that fall outside of that purely financial realm.

But that's not the norm, it seems. BP's oil spill, Chile's earthquake, redshirt riots in Bangkok; disasters of this magnitude don't happen every day. What happens every day in this company is people having heart attacks about putting out the latest "snap" that says, for example, that the consumer price index in Chile changed 0.0 percent. That's what I got to work at 7:30 for this morning (who's got two thumbs and is not a morning person? This girl) - a 0.0 percent change. I can't get excited over that. I get an adrenaline rush because I want us to beat Bloomburg and I don't want to screw anything up, but 0.0 percent? Even a 0.5 percent change doesn't get me going.

Now, a lot of this I can chalk up to my own ignorance. If I knew what a 0.5 percent change does to the market, if I really understood it, I'm sure I could get a little more fired up. But still...I don't care about rich corporations making more money or losing some of their obscene amounts of wealth. Jobless data? That's more interesting, but to Rtrs, it's just a number. What about the jobless people? I'd rather talk to them than count them.

Anyway. Tomorrow I get to do a story that's more fun, although it was given to me out of pity, I feel. It's for Rtrs "Life!" which is all features. Rtrs does these "Travel Postcards" for big cities, explaining what to do in "48 hours" when you're there. So instead of going into the office and sitting for 10 straight hours, as I did today, I get to explore Santiago. Cable car up Cerro San Cristobal, I've got my eye on you.

Love always,
molly