My REAL First Day...

...was amazing!
First, our class went to the offices of Bloomberg in London. Bloomberg is a financial data and information company that expanded to become a major, integrated news setwork. Walking into their offices was like walking into a people-aquarium. Everything is clear: walls, tables, cabinets, trashcans. The print news floor had football (soccer) bean bag chairs, which were awesome. There was free food and drink, and no one was over the age of 30. It was like a big party + a gazillion Bloomberg terminal computers.
Bloomberg operates a news service, magazine, tv stations (in multiple languages, podcasts, internet news....the works. It was facinating to hear how they are integrating their reporting, and how customer service has taken a big role in their news industry. In fact, when you first walk in, you dont walk into thier lobby. You walk into their broadcast station. Which transmits to little screens all over the office, including on the benches in the lobby.
When I got to work this afternoon, my first assignment was a story based in the reproductive rights world, which was really exciting! An artist wants to hang a sculpture of a crucified pregnant teenager at an antipoverty event, and the sponsors wont let him. Freedom of expression+ sexuality education= awesome!
I wrote the story and turned it in to my editor, who called me over to her desk. She looked at me, turned to the story, and deleted everything except the first 2 sentences. Then she turned back to me and said, 'whats wrong with this?'
I was like, o my god what am I doing here.
But then I realized, if I ran a paper like the Columbia Missourian and my international page only had room for 2 sentences of an AP wire story, I would not choose the story I'd just written. It didnt make any sense.
So she sent me home with some notes and a whole new perspective on how news is delivered over the wire.
I think Im gunna like it here.