Before my first involvement in a press team, I used to ask myself – like some delegates do – why its members are so joined. I also urged to know why a great number of reporters, not the "presstending" ones from this simulation, are alcoholics, downcast and very stressful. A single day observing our routine answers all of these questions.
Considering that we don’t have a schedule, it is common to find one of us having insomnia at the office or even having lunch when is actually time for dinner – on those lucky days when it is possible to have lunch. During the long and hard way between the office and the printing house, we face the time running, complaining and yelling at ourselves. The article that you are reading right now was planned on Friday and written yesterday. During a press day, everything has to be done by midday, including the designing, which takes a long time – maybe the entire morning. Our Editor-in-chief takes it to the printing house, and process of printing the newspaper takes 4 or 5 hours – if we are lucky. By the was, while I am writing this, a rushed reporter, Mariana Muniz, just fell off the stairs and is lying down on the floor of the hotel’s hall. That’s the seamy side of a job.
As you know, all the efforts do not avoid mistakes. The first edition made the whole press mad, jaded and a little confused: we just could not understand how the errors passed by us without noticing, after all, at least five of us had read that.
These hard days made me believe that suffering join people together. As in the staff, press members became real friends after all these days of work. Besides the fact that it is very tiring, the passion for the job justified all of our nights without sleep. Actually, the smell of a brand new and warm newspaper makes everything worthwhile.
