Friday 6 March, Hillary R. Clinton,  Secretary of State of Obama’s administration was at the European parliament for a discussion with young Europeans.  Funny how Ms Clinton’s visit provocates a sense of excitement in our team. We are used to interview VIPs (Prince Charles, Gorbatchev etc.) and we usually don’t fuss about that much. It’s part of the job, one of the best parts actually, but still business as usual when you cover the main activities of an international institution. In the case of Ms Clinton, we knew from the start that we wouldn’t get an interview slot (despite we publish in 22 languages, we’re not considered as an international media of interest by some of our guests’ publicists, mind you). The task was: to announce the streaming of the event, via a nice banner our overwhelmed Studio produced in record time, and to cover the event itself.

There was a little twist of unknown, as the event was strictly on invitation only, we didn’t know who, from our team, would be invited. There was one single criteria: being below 35 years old – which reminded me that I don’t belong anymore to the young generation (if nothing else this event suffices to remind me of my status in life). And, of course, a chance factor, as the limited available seats forced our authorities to establish quotas for each Directorate-General, names assigned to those quotas being chosen by the  Directors-General themselves. I was quite happy not to be the one in charge of designating les heureux élus, which also proves I am not fit to become a Director-General yet. They’re right when they tell me to wait for another half-century.

Ms Clinton at the European parliament.

Thursday was all about suspense: who would get the golden ticket to visit the Chocolate Factory? Our talented photograph, Pietro, whose health is proverbially good, was sick as a dead cow, sending SMS from his bed of pain promising he would be there to cover the event because he has called his mother who had called her auntie who knows  a secret herbal recipe that would cure him, no doubt, and that he would drink it all night long providing the corner shop has some stocks of [insert latin name here]. Did I mention Pietro is Italian? He does write long SMS. But would he be here on time? (Answer: no. He’s still drinking some beverages which don’t comply with any known EU rules and that, I suspect, could be worse than the actual disease).

In the early evening, we knew: Josh, Bárbara (the too young to be veteran) and Kristiina (who wants to touch you, dear reader) were the Chosen Ones. 

They woke up at dawn, passed the Parliament’s security check, then the American security check, they sat. They waited.

And the rest of us? We were all plugged in on EP Live or europarltv,  waiting for the show. We wrote on this blog about the quality of the American election campaign, and we all know how our life would be easier with European political personnality benfiting from the charisma and the popularity of Ms Clinton. This morning’s event was a live demonstration.  As professionnal in the field of communication, we were commenting loudly, from an office to another and in the corridor, the savoir-faire of the lady.  Our remarks prove how expert we became: “She looks younger.” “No, older”. “Isn’t she a bit orange?”. “What’s the brand of her outfit?”. We were deep into the substance.

Suddenly, as I was focusing on some urgent e-mails inquiring if we were to open a Klingon version of our website soon enough, cheers rang out down the corridor. Had Hillary announced she was running for European election?  Had Bill Clinton (one of my personal heroes, if you want to know) made a sudden appearance à la Oscars ceremony? Nope, nothing could rivalize with the reality: Bárbara, our Bárbara, our Spanish editor, was asking a question! And she had introduced herself as Web-editor ofthe European parliament website – but she has forgotten to give the url…

I cheered, I danced, I sang and I went back on another e-mail asking me how the hell we could allow advertisement to be published on the parliament’s website (answers: there aren’t any).

A the time of this writing, our three editors are writing the synopsis of the story to be published this afternoon, Steve and Fiona (editorial coordinator) are chosing the photos the Photo service sent to us.  We are moaning because we’d like to have another banner to promote our story on Hillary but we already have one scheduled that we cannot remove. There is also the urge of finishing the week, the Friday’s feeling before a Plenary week, the editors asking for the synopsis, the rush of… well, the rush of a newsdeks in any mainstream media. Just another day at the office, only with Hillary.

You can watch the event here (recorded streaming).

You can read our coverage here (there is even a slideshow inside, click on the picture to launch it).