It’s better than a mass e-mail

My roommate is moving soon so we decided last night to go out for a traditional Czech meal. On a somewhat cryptic recommendation, we trapesed around Vysehrad until finally finding the place hidden on a side street near the river. I want to say it was called Restaurace Podskalska, or something close, for those taking travel guide notes.

We walked into the restaurant, down a few steps and were greeted by a thick cloud of cigarette smoke and a waitress with dyed hair and an unusual, somewhat gritty Czech accent.

Kate can certainly hold her own speaking Czech, but we were guessing a little about what to order, mainly going off of what we had heard was traditional Czech food and looking up every second word in my handy pocket dictionary.

Perhaps the most notable experience of the meal was our appetizer. We could discern something about toast and tartarsky (or close to it), and Kate had heard that was a good popular Czech dish to get us started. So we ordered it and two velky pivos (big beers… that’s my Czechlish for you), and when the dish came, we dove in.

First was a few pieces of thick, crispy fried buttery toast. Next to it came a plate of some kind of meaty spread, which I promptly slathered on the toast and sunk my teeth into. It was savory and rich and oniony and delicious. Meanwhile, I was musing on the texture. Hmm, I said to Kate, this looks strangely like uncooked meat or perhaps ground burger…. Her eyes became as wide as saucers and she stopped chewing mid-bite. I watched her put it together in her mind. Tartarsky. Steak Tartar. Raw meat. Friend in Brussels ate it and was sick for days. That promptly ended our enjoyment of the appetizer. Guess it helps to know what you are ordering, right?

We got much luckier with the entrees: an herbed chicken cooked to tender perfection, breaded and fried pork and potato wedges that would make anyone rethink the potentials of potatoes. It was excellent – perhaps one of the best meals of my life and undoubtedly in Prague. The atmosphere, the food, the waitress, it all made it feel like we had truly stumbled upon a traditional Czech meal.

Allegedly there is a law in the Czech Republic that says reporters have to show their sources a copy of their stories before they run in the paper. I say allegedly because I have yet to verify that for myself, and my source is perhaps questionable, but my recent experiences would certainly support that claim.

Law or no law, the approach to the media here is very different from the States.

I now have had several people demand to see copy before I file – not timidly requested like sometimes happened in the States. It seems like it is expected, and in fact I had one woman on the phone with me today become quite belligerent and come close to declining the interview. And of course, each time, I give the line about how it’s not our policy, I’d be glad to verify facts, but no copy. I have had to become increasingly more firm with that. And as I understand it, the Prague Post is an American-owned paper and doesn’t fall under said laws, although that seems to matter little.

The more people ask for questions in advance, to check quotes and then finally see copy, the less we become reporters and writers.

Ah, but the lessons of reporting abroad don’t stop there. A lot of people are suspicious of the press, and therefore hesitant to be interviewed. Twice I have had sources set up meetings before the interview, just to get to know me, size me up, before moving on to the meat of the story. They want to sit, have an espresso, see what I have in mind for the story…. and really, folks, neither of these stories were Watergate here. And in each case, neither of my sources made it clear that we were just meeting to meet, so I show up ready to go – in one case with a photographer – and they are surprised that a story is being written and that I have a deadline.

Today, I met with the director of the gender studies program at Charles University here. It’s the first and only such program in the Czech Republic, as women’s rights and gender issues weren’t much of a movement here. Perhaps some of that is because under communism, everyone is presumably the same, women always worked and interacted on the same economic level, and so there was no institution to rail against. Yet women were not – and still aren’t – treated equally socially. But I digress… maybe that’s for another post.

By way of illustration to how Czech’s view women’s issues, one Czech reporter wrote about this program, and said things about how she expected to see bras burning on the lawn of the school and after sitting in on a queer studies class, she wasn’t sure how many genders there were and if she would walk into the wrong bathroom at the school.

No wonder they are a little hesitant.

But rather than make it clear to me that she wanted to meet first and in her words “size me up,” she just had me come to her office (half hour train ride away) with the understanding that we would interview and instead she tried to tell me what she thought would be a good angle for the story. Again, I am the reporter. Please let me do what I do.

She also asked me to see copy before I filed.

Seems like everyday is a reporting adventure here.

river running through Kutna Hora
Originally uploaded by saramichael00.

I spent the day Sunday in Kutna Hora, a small town about an hour train ride from Prague. The weather was perfect for laying around in the park, wandering around the town and walking along the tiny river. It was quiet and peaceful and very much springtime.

bone chandelier
Originally uploaded by saramichael00.

This a bone chandelier in the Kostnice Ossuary in Kutna Hora. The ossuary has the bones of some 40,000 people who died from the plauge in the 14th century. An artist was later hired to creatively arrange the bones, and apparently, this chandelier utilizes every bone found in the human body. The place is eerie, and it’s hard to imagine you are really looking at human bones.

I realize I am here working at the Prague Post and have written precious little about what I am doing and what it’s like to report half way across the world.

The first barrier I had to work out was whether or not to assume my sources spoke English. When I call someone on the phone, do I just ask to speak with the person or first ask if they speak English. Luckily, I had guidance from the other reporters on who spoke English and who didn’t and when we aren’t sure, have one of the researchers call and find out who we should talk to.

My first few stories were for the business section, guaranteeing that most of my sources would speak pretty good English. It was for my story on the HR Giger exhibit (think the movie Alien circa 1980) that I was in for a real international reporting treat. I went to cover the press conference – which was in Czech, or German translated into Czech. I managed to get there early and scope out the folks I needed to talk to after the press event (including Giger himself which I understand is kind of a coup). I sit down for the press conference, knowing full well it will be Czech, but thinking maybe some will be translated to English or it won’t be too long. An hour later, my mind is racing and I feel like I might scream. I understood nothing, and in fact I felt like all the good anecdotes and inside jokes and basic information for my story were right in front of me, and every one else could understand them but me. It was right up there with the most frustrating reporting experiences I have ever had.

But I walked out of there with a few good interviews, a glimpse of this wackjob’s art work, and enough to write a story. But I knew I had missed something – I probably missed the bulk of the story, or perhaps a new angle. And talking about it with my editor, I understand this is how it is working for an English language paper here. You do what you can, and I did.

Also for another story I went around and talked to people on the street for reaction (massive disgusting eyesore of a mall being built downtown), and brought a translator with me. While it was a neat experience with a translator, I again felt like I was missing something.

My other stories haven’t been event based and have been kind of fun to report. I just finished one about the Manchester UK government drawing up a list of recommendations for how Brits coming to Prague should act. Apparently, with flights so cheap to Prague and beer so cheap when you get here, guys come over here for stag parties and get drunk and rowdy in the streets. It has become a real problem, but from talking to some drunken British louts, a list from their government isn’t going to make much difference.

So that is reporting in Prague, so far. I am going a good mix of stories – at my insistence, resisting filling the whole left by the real estate reporter.