Hitting the streets

I had the fortune of shadowing a local radio reporter here in Lima a few weeks ago.

The day starts early, 5 a.m., but I am used to it after years of the early morning news shift in Chicago. When you get up that early you are dealing with a very select group of people, most of them doing some serious labor and not sitting in an ergonomic chair, zoning out at a computer like I was.

You get to know everybody who is up at that hour because there are only two trains or busses an hour. Everybody is pretty dilligent because if you miss the half hour deadline, you will be late to work.

I remember one guy who always used to wait at the bus stop with me. Everyday he arrived with a small lunch cooler, suspenders, a flannel sweatshirt and a hat emblazoned with the term "Head-Butt." We never spoke. He did not appear to have many teeth so that was probably for the best. But I did feel some sort of kinship to him, a strange pride that comes with the notion that everybody else is still in bed. He would get off a few stops before me at a construction site.

I always loved the early morning construction guys because they would be up so early that lunch time landed around 9 a.m., when most other people were getting to work. They would be lined up at a portable lunch wagon ordering ham and cheese sandwiches and burgers while people walked by with their latte's.

I digress...

Back to Lima and the present. So I got up at 4 and hit the RPP radio studios at 5, the sun was starting to rise as it is summer. The morning news program, Rotativa del Aire kicks off around 5 a.m.. I was matched up with one of the staff beat reporters who spends the day moving around the city collecting news. Lima has no public transit system, so unlike the old days when I would hop on a train to catch a press conference, the RPP reporters have not only company cars, but drivers. This service is referred to as movil, and it is, more than anything, a very creative marketing tool. Obviously a tv crew warrants a truck and driver based on equipment and deadlines. You don´t really need a truck to lug around one microphone, a tape recorder and a pair of headphones. It appears to make even less sense in the case of RPP where reporters mainly file stories almost exclusively via cell phone. But don´t underestimate the beauty of a car with a shiny logo. The movil service doubles as a very visible marketing tool. People constantly came up to the car throughout the day to share news, say thanks or just chat. RPP has succesfully sold itself as the media of the people.

So I hopped in the back of the car with the equipment (cell phone and notepad) and went along for the ride.

We started the morning in the La Victoria district, at a local fruit market-distribution center for the city. The joint was hopping at 5:30 a.m. as people were getting their supplies for the day. Lima has both a growing number of formal supermarkets and continues to host an army of corner fruit stands.

The news...rains in the eastern Peruvian jungle were killing the papaya and pineapple imports. We got ahold of the market manager who oversees an impressive 3 thousand different vendors inside the market. We chatted with the guy for about ten minutes, getting the details on the papaya pandemic.

So, being a neophyte, I began to wonder why we weren´t recording our encounter. Where was the microphone and tape recorder? In a flash my reporter flipped open his cell phone, called into the RPP board, and next thing I knew he was live filing a report. The most impressive part of the 2 minute news flash was how he set up the quote from the market manager. He put the phone in the man´s face, got a ten second quote, and slipped right back into his internal script. That kind of mini report used to take me a good half hour to write, cut the sound bite, and voice back in the day. And I thought I had it down to a science. So, considering what I had just witnessed, I was left feeling a little bit like a sloth with a Western Union Telegraph machine trying to tell the world that my tree is on fire.

We hustled out of the market to our waiting chariot. The beauty of having a driver with the company car is we never have to find parking, which is tough when you are manuevering 3 thousand fruit vendors with carts and trucks.

Next stop,

Breakfast.

Yes I know, this image is of a plate of fried rice. But when you get up at 4 you have got to find away to keep the tank full of energy. So we headed to a lunch counter inside a typically kiosk flooded Peruvian comercial center. My options where fried rice or pasta with meat sauce. I went with the pasta, mi estimado had an enormous plate of chaufa, or Peruvian-Chinese fried rice. Just as we sat down to eat a tv news crew rolled up. Apparently this was the spot for the early morning news hounds. A few slaps on the backs and jokes later we were on our way again. For the record, spaghetti breath at 6 a.m. is a little rough.

The TV reporters gave us a hot tip on a press conference at the soccer stadium for a local club. Some fans had breached security and nearly killed a rival the previous weekend and an announcement was expected handing down a punishment to the team. So we headed to the suburbs where the stadium was. A half hour later we got word nothing was going to happen. Perhaps it was a food coma, or the already blazing 7 a.m sun, but next thing I remember it was 8 a.m. and I was waking up from a nap in the back seat. Apparently I didn´t miss anything. Another bum press conference later and we were off to San Miguel. We pulled up to a curb in a neighborhood adjacent to the ocean. I was told it was a personal visit and not to get out of the car with the reporter. Interesting.

He put on his designer sun glasses and disappeared for 20 minutes.

The driver of the car seemed fairly adept at being the opposite of his cohort, he was very good at not asking questions. Next stop, the reporter´s house where we waited another 20 minutes, he returned with wet hair, apparently it was time for a quick shower. By this point the sun was so hot that my t-shirt was starting to stick to the synthetic back seat. Mr. so fresh and so clean was revived and ready to hit another press conference. Mr. Hardman was hot, sweaty, smelled like spaghetti, and ready to go home.

Luckily the next press conference was on. We entered the swanky offices of Perús most powerful business coalition. There were actually two press conferences going on. The first was definitely the opening act. Peru´s Minister of industry was announcing a new partnership between the government and the local Yellow Pages to promote Peruvian made goods.

The minister, Rafael Rey Rey (translation Rafael King King) walked into the room flanked by two models in matching Yellow Pages jumpsuits. He was dragging on a cigarette and looked about as trustworthy as a second hand Yugo. He paused, checked out the crowd, an assistant came over waited as he took one last deep inhale, then she took the cigarette from him to extinguish. He proceeded up to the stage and sat down at the table while a, literally, 5 minute presentation took place.

Mr. ReyRey in another important moment inspecting toilets

A host of tv and radio stations were on hand. Around seven microphones were set up at the table, some of them were not connected to cables, which generally means they are remotes. Not in this case. Some radio stations had no intention, or possibly no capacity, to record the press conference. Their microphones were at the table so their company logos would be in the tv camera shots. Again, marketing rules the world.

After the presentation a few nice words were said and it was time to drink. 10:30 a.m. and a line of waiters in tuxedos walked in the room with platters full of pisco sours, Perús flagship alcoholic drink. Rey Rey and the Yellow Pages CEO drank first, and then everybody was offered a drink to celebrate the occasion.

I was again at a loss for words. My reporter in tow was nowhere to be found. While polishing off some more pisco sours Rey Rey took some questions. Some of the radio reporters hid small tape recorders under their logo flanked microphones that were again connected to thin air.

The Yellow Pages girls tried to slide into as many press photos and video shots as possible. The mood was more Vegas superfight weigh-in than political press conference.

My reporter appeared, he had been outside smoking. This press conference wasn´t worth the time he said. The next one happening in the same building in a half hour was the big one. The coalition of big business owners were going to shoot down a government proposed new wage law. It sounded like legit news which both excited me and threatened to ruin what to this point was a terrifically insane morning. I thanked my reporter, waved goodbye to the Yellow Pages girls and headed back out into the hot sun. (I must apologize, I did not have a camera with me this day and I will never forgive myself. But, I hope my words do justice and that you believe that every last thing I wrote is VERDAD.)