Reporters & editors busy working in the newsroom at the KANSAS CITY STAR newspaper.

Every working day, our 22 editors (one by official language of the European Union) write and publish 2 to 3 stories. Some stories are short, some are long. Each story comes with a photo, with a bunch of links to know more about the subject, sometimes with an embedded video from our sister team europarltv. All elements are manually put together by each editor in an home made Content Management System (which little name is “IM-Press”), solid as a rock, fast as a slug.

Twice a week, every editors update our promoting areas:

• the three horizontal boxes on the middle of our page which look like this (we call them “Visuals”):

Three visuals promoting good stories or videos

• the three vertical boxes on the left middle of our page (we call them “ads” – we’re so good at names):

Ads are just different promoting boxes

Ads and Visuals are also managed by our content management system.

Of course, sometimes a story is actually bigger than a regular article  and they may have to write a full dossier on a subject.

Every week, our editors also publish little bits of content for other areas of the website. It can be texts for special event webpages, proofreading of translated content (usually, they have to rewrite it all, almost), labels, menus etc. They tend to dislike those petty things to do because they distract them from watching YouTube and they often come at the last minute with a deadline for yesterday. Editors blame the coordinators for that and they are right. The coordinators blame the Boss. We don’t know who the Boss blames. Most people consider we have a website in 22 languages. Actually, from our point of view, we have 22 websites and only one editor for each. We survive with a lot of coordination and goodwill, but the lack of back-ups and the increase of small demands are difficult to manage.

In order to write their stories, editors need a fully approved synopsis. If Steve is the one approving the synopses, editors are the ones writing them. Every two weeks, an editor writes (in pair with a colleague or alone) one or two synopses. A good synopsis takes quite a long time to produce: you need context and background, fresh quotes from MEPs, a good structure, some facts and numbers… When this is your synopsis writing week, you know it will be a busy one. We consume six to twelve synopses a week.

When they are not writing

When they’re not writing, editors propose stories for the week ahead. They are now organized in seven “topics teams” (like “World”, “Business”, “Society”) and must come to our Wednesday meeting with suggestions for the next week schedule.  This is also time consuming: they need to check committees’ agendas, to review the press, to feel what the good subjects are, the best angles, the promising developments… They talk with our colleagues from the Press Room, with their contacts.

Every editor has also to write a post on this blog every six weeks or so. Some of them find the time to write spontaneous posts, which is a wonder in itself.

Of course, when they’re not writing, they also might attend some events, say a committee meeting or an hearing, so they can produce a synopsis. Or they are in an interview with a VIP or an MEP.

Most of the time, when editors are not writing, they work on their project. They all have at least one but it happens that some of them are between two projects. What do we call “projects”? Well, the social-media team (four editors) is one of them, in charge of updating our EP Facebook profile, to keep an eye on the comments, to answer some questions… and to go to a lot of meetings to explain, present, defend what we do on Facebook. The YouTube page is another one. And so is our MySpace. We have a lot of them, from managing the media strategy for a Prize or a hot topic to brainstorming on our next online platform or application, checking the stats, babysitting my cat etc. The projects are time consuming: meetings, briefs, notes, presentations… You know the drill.

Every editor has also to write a post on this blog every six weeks or so. Some of them find the time to write spontaneous posts, which is a wonder in itself.

So, they’re busy. As busy are our other team members: our photographer, our support-editors (they basically do the same tasks as our editors except for the daily writing) and the coordinators.

We would like the editors to spend less time behind their keyboard and more outside, so they could report more and live an active and fruitful professional life. Alas, their bread and butter remain the publishing on the Headlines.  We try to publish less when we can, we try to write shorter (which is asking more work from the synopses writers) but the European Parliament is dealing with more and more issues and someone has to report about those.

Even if we have solid workflows and good habbits, we always try to improve ourselves. One or twice in the year, we organize some workshops to improve our work. We try to keep our mind open for new ideas, new trends, new ways of reporting on the European Parliament. At the moment, we focus on the future of our digital strategy.  We also wonder how we could improve the coverage of the plenary sessions.

There is always something new to propose, something different to implement. Which may explain why being an editor is so interesting, in the “I’ll call you back I’m busy at the moment” way of interesting.

The 2-3 last Fridays have been really great because almost everyone has attended the meeting. People are everywhere, some are sitting on the floor; some others on small tables, some other on the sofas and others are standing; remember this is a stand-up meeting. Most of the people are in jeans and informal on this special occasion.

The meeting usually starts with a welcome word from Thibault; our editorial coordinator. Thibault presents the next week’s schedule on what is going to be publishing on la une; when he is done comes our head of unit, Steve. Steve usually completes what Thibault has said, but sometimes he also gives some other information on the blog, -the team photo, etc.

Editorial meeting, a family gathering.

Talking about our supervisors.

Guess what? Thibault is a Frenchman, so you can imagine the prestige of a Frenchman speaking English. And as a cool French guy he sometimes uses French while speaking English. For instance: “Ze photo service” he may say. It is funny because he always uses some French words and that makes me sometimes try to realise if it is French or English that he is speaking. This is Friday and Thibault looks cool with his polo-capuchon with too different colours on. In my opinion, the best thing about Mr Thibault is that he always tries to take the best out of everyone and that is great.

Steve; the head of unit, on the other hand is always in suit and knows how to be the boss; He is gentle but for some reason you just respect him a lot. The impressive thing about Steve is his British accent. He is actually British. It is hard to say if I personally listen to what Steve is saying or if I just listen to the song given by that beautiful accent. Can you realise the position, not just he is the boss, but also he is English- by the way we use English as the communicative language at the unit. He is sometimes accompanied by David also a British singer (the accent sound as a song to me)

Everyone has a piece of paper and a pen to look professional, but they almost never quite note a thing. It is like a family gathering, everybody is happy

I do not know what really happened at the unit lately, however most of the people are there and it is cool. As I said before, people are everywhere. Evita – Steve’s assistant, usually sits on the floor with the bowler full of water that she drinks. Raffaella- the Italian editor, also sits on the floor, hands on the table while she is taking notes. Helle the Swedish editor always has her beautiful smile on and we, the trainees, usually find a place by the window or in the corner of the room to be hidden there so that no one can really see us.

Everyone has a piece of paper and a pen to look professional, but they almost never quite note a thing. It is like a family gathering, everybody is happy. It is a happy place to be and really pleasant and down-to-earth. The editorial meeting sometimes reminds me of stories I was used to hear as a little girl. These stories are about village-gatherings in the heart of the bushes in Africa where the oldest (Tibo and Steve) talk to the other family members about what will be the next move for the village. This meeting is not just for the oldest to tell the others what to do, but everyone is involved and thy have had several meetings before. This is the last one when the final decisions are made. However, thank God that the meeting is in Brussels at the EP and this is not in a village in Africa. There is no fire that we have to sit around and thanks also because even though it is cold and autumn in Brussels, we do not need to be there half naked and we do not need to dance around the fire in this beautiful and modern family gathering.

Whenever one of our European Hemingways goes on vacation, say because he/she has worked like hell for some European Elections campaign  in the last eighteen months, well, the writing and publishing flow in his/her language suddenly stops, depriving millions of fellows common language speakers of the latest important news, such as our dear President being ready to go to Iran.

(Open bracket)
Iran, where, suprisingly, not only do citizens actually care about voting in elections but also massively demonstrate in the streets and find the guts to fight armed forces, militia and other religious coarcition when they know their votes aren’t respected. They don’t want a change of regime, like, say, overthrowing the Islamic Republic, they want the republic’s rules to be applied and their vote to be respected. Meanwhile, in civilized and democratic EU, more than one out of two Europeans didn’t bother to vote.  Too complicated. Not democratic enough. Too far away. Compared to easy ongoing Iran where the Guardians of the revolution make sure, everywhere and all the time, that you wear the right kind of clothes, hum the authorised tune and use your cell phone only when the State wishes so, expressing a democratic choice, having your say, is such a piece of cake.
(Closed bracket)

Hemingway's typewriter. Yep, the real one. (cc) Shiny Things on Flickr

We don’t have official back-up but we have some unofficial ones. We ask colleagues from other Units, we ask our trainees, we even use translators if the leave is expected to be for a long time. The aim is to keep the website fairly alive in all languages and to reduce the burden of our missing Orwell, so he/she doesn’t find a too high pile of synopsis on his/her desk when coming back. They tend to loose all  their sun tan at once otherwise.

Being French, I act as Florent‘s shadow when he’s on leave. That is, if I don’t have too much to coordinate, which was happily the case this week. Florent is off I don’t know where, I was myself back from Andalusia, thank you very much, and we now live in a quiet realm between the Elections and the first Plenary session, when we try to recover before the craziness starts again. There is not that much to coordinate yet. So I wrote the stories in French, from the synopsis crafted by our weekly appointed Albert Londons and approved by Steve.

All cars are on the same track but every pilot is alone in his car and is responsible for the quality and the beauty of the race. You, dear readers, are the passengers.

Moving to the role of editor when being a coordinator is like becoming pilot in a rally race when you usually work at the stand.  At the stand, we prepare the race, we fix the car, we talk to the engineers and the meccanics, we handle the external pressure, we draw the roadmap with the pilots. In the car, the co-pilot provides the synopsis and, then, the pilot is on his own. He writes. He adds to a common script the flavour of the style, the quality of the language.  All cars are on the same track but every pilot is alone in his car and is responsible for the quality and the beauty of the race. You, dear readers, are the passengers.

This is what I love most.

I often say that I think being a web-editor in our team is amongst the best job in all the institution. You learn a lot about the European affairs, you cover news, you meet VIPs and European actors. And you write. The job combines all advantages of belonging to a really cool and professional team with the self-satisfaction and the creativity of real personal work. Another bonus is: as a writer, you know when your job is done – it’s when your story is published. At the end of the day, you can see what you’ve achieved. It’s online.

I can do all what editors do and this is really cool.

Apart from the writing pleasure, sitting behind the wheel for a week allows me to check on the daily life and work of our García Márquez lot. How long does it take for a blue-fish like me to write and publish the full story? How many synopses a day is really too much? Do our gears and tools, content management system and editing formulars work smoothly? It gives me a different look on the synopses themselves. I read them everyday but I don’t use them for writing. This is a totally different thing, mind you. When being a pilot, I can criticize a quote left by Steve, laugh at some answers given in interviews, complain about the length, the structure. I can do all what editors do and this is really cool.

I can even yell from my desk (or, even better, by passing by my fellow editors’ desks): “I’ve published!” after one of those either long or too institutional pieces we have to produce every now and then.

Of course, even when acting as an editor only for a week, there is always a missing part: the synopsis writing where the real business of journalism lies. Sourcing the story, finding the proper angle, building a structure, getting quotes, working with a peer. Cutting, adding, milking… This demands more involvement in our editorial system and more time. You can’t be a tourist. 21 other pilots count on you for their ride.

Florent comes back soon. I know he will grin a bit at the French website – even if it lightens their return, editors don’t like when someone else published on “their” headlines. (Some of them even rewrite everything that was published when they were away). I’ll hand him over they keys and I’ll return to my booth, at the stand. There are races everyday and someone has to coordinate all this mess the pilots leave behind.