Archive for August 7th, 2012

When this is all done, and I go home, my family and friends will all ask; ‘How were the Olympics?’
And I’ll answer; ‘You tell me?’
This is not a complaint – millions of people would love to be doing what we’re doing as we cover the Games – but the pace is so quick, there is no time to appreciate what we’re seeing.
I covered the equestrian show jumping yesterday at one of the world’s finest venues. And other than a five minute slow walk on the jumping field, from daybreak to past sunset, I moved at a pace even Usain Bolt would find impressive.
Our journalists most often cover multiple events and venues each day, in a city that is not easy to get around in. We write on buses and we write on our Blackberries.
And as we run, we tend to blogs, Tweet, do videos, take pictures and sit down for live hits back to Canada.
I don’t know about other journalists here, but by the end of each day, I feel wrung-out of every word in my head.
There are no longer far off deadlines for newspapers — the web demands constant content.
What does all this add up to? Not a bitch session, but an acknowledgment that our jobs have changed.
Most journalists sent out on these kinds of assignments always expect to go without sleep.
I’ve only done a few Olympics, but I have spent enough time on major foreign assignments.
And lost is the ability to really soak in an event – both bad and good ones. To become part of it and put that down in words that you, the reader, might understand, learn from and enjoy.
I think we still do an outstanding job. That’s for you to really decide.
I can’t tell whether our story-telling is as good as it once was, better or slightly more frantic.
But I do wish we had a few pauses to properly reflect on what we are witnessing and sit still long enough to open our eyes wide and be able to answer that question I know is coming from those back home.