such is life as a reporter in the Czech Republic

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.