Once again, I had the honor of going to their meeting. And like every morning-after Wednesday, I receive several calls by members of the council who want to “explain” to me their point of view very explicitly once again, or ask when their issue will be in the newspaper. I have to admit that I´ve gotten used to these calls. However, this doesn´t change the fact that they´re very annoying. I´ve been doing this job for four years now and the issue that several people I report about always want to influence me hasn´t changed. It´s probably the fact that many people from my hometown, a one-horse town of approximately 2700, know me, which they think gives them the right to try to influence me and my writing, I assume. But cronyism is not in my vocabulary.
The conversations on the phone are always the same: “Hey, I just wanted to talk to you about the meeting. What this ‘bad guy’ XY from the other party said about our idea yesterday was totally inappropriate, don´t you think? Can you imagine the nerve? That´s totally rude and not worth writing about, is it?” My idea is if you call me at 7.30 a.m. on a day I could actually sleep in, it is DEFINITELY worth writing about.
But hey, they just don´t get it that I don´t want to receive a wake-up call like this one. It´s like training my dog. After a couple of days without training, he isn´t up for anything anymore. That´s probably either because he is some kind of a male diva or because he has forgotten his tricks. However, if I give him a treat, he´ll do everything. “Good dog!” Probably I should buy some chocolate and give it to every member of the council who has not called me the last month as kind of a reward. It would definitely be worth a try.
But not only the members of the local council try to persuade me now and then what to write. That´s something I´ve experienced in many different situations: There are these Annual General Meetings, for example, where some “internal issues” are mentioned in a speech that they forbid me to use for the article afterwards. Guys, why the hell would you mention such secret stuff which I´m not “allowed” to write about in your talk then? I still don´t get it. Is it so hard to distinguish between information designed to be published and information that´s supposed to stay among the members of the board? Anyway, forbidding me to write something intensifies my interest and my intention to write about it. Prohibitions are an own goal in this case, but that´s the problem of the association. By now they should have recognized that their objections are useless.
Publication day always results in a very interesting moment, when I arrive at the editorial office and the secretaries tell me whether somebody has already called – this time I hadn´t forgotten to switch off my mobile phone – or not. It´s always nice to hear the claims and questions of the misunderstood. My answer to those is always the same: “You can´t tell me what to write, because you´re not my boss.” They actually have to accept this, but most of them don´t, of course. Sometimes the special clientele even call my boss or another editor to tell them their problem. However, they always get the same answer from them as well: “What we publish in our newspaper is none of your business.”
Sometimes being a journalist is very exhausting, because there are numerous people who make life very difficult. That´s why it can be very time consuming sometimes, but that´s most probably like in any other job. But I love this job and it´s a lot of fun. For some strange reason, Coldplay is not my favorite band anymore, though.
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