News

Sometimes news happens. Some stories are bigger than others. I honestly never got that news rush over the agenda to the Columbia City Council. Sorry Matt H.

Enter North Korea and its nuclear test.

7:30 a.m.
I get into work like I usually do. My job in the morning is to write the Hong Kong Stocks preview - basically what's going on in the world that might affect stocks. It's nothing big, I work on it every morning. Because it was coming off a holiday in Asia, it was suspected to be a very quite day on the market. U.S. economic indicators playing possible drag on U.S. market, along with liquidity flowing out of the market in preparation for the $19.1 billion ISBC initial public offering. So, pretty much an uneventful day, I made plans in my schedule to work on a Espr*t story on my down time.

9:30 a.m.
I send my stock preview story to the wire and then spend the morning prepping to call fund investors to get a comment on what happens with the market.

10:00 a.m.
Market opens. Hang Seng is trading down as we suspected, no biggie.

10:37 a.m.
Market loses 200 points in five minutes. Wires start talking about an earthquake in North Korea. The Bureau realizes what's most likely happened.

(Insert Blurry Time Figure Here)
Hong Kong is B-Berg's central Asia bureau. Everything is cooridinated from here. So, everything starts going crazy. "North Korea claims nuclear test" starts being the first things we throw up on the wire.

I call my mom and freak her out. Sorry about that. I also call Jenna... Hi Jenna!

My immediate supervisor and full time stock writer, Darren, throws me on the phones. He wants as many comments about what is going to happen to the market as possible. His boss throws him on covering Korean stocks, because obviously the S. Korean bureau has their hands a little full at the moment.

So, that leaves me with the Hong Kong stocks story for the day. The Hang Seng ends up closing 22x.xx points down from records set on Thursday. But, yea, I was given a story that I pretty much built for the most part on my own. I got all the quotes for the story, helped construct it. I got some help from Darren (who could be reading this blog... howdy mate).

That was my part in the North Korean bomb thing. I covered it.... I think? Who knows.

It was a freakin' rush though. I was thinking back. I haven't had a news rush in a long time, one of a bigger scale like this. I was not writing at the time of 9/11 - yea, Derek, I am not that old...

But this was pretty cool. I was in Asia for big story like that. I wasn't studying in South Korea or something, which, honestly, would be even cooler. At least I have a couple interesting stories to come back with.

I hope I am doing well at B-berg. I sometimes wonder. I'm doing a lot of reporting, but not a lot of writing. I'm going to work on a few stories on my own the next couple weeks to build some clips here.

Anyways, sorry for not writing this more eloquently. I'm bloody tired. However! I refrain from using my traditional closing line for these more popular pop culture references:

"Somebody set up us the bomb!"

Kim Jong Il: I'm so Ronery / So ronery / So ronery and sadry arone / There's no one / Just me onry / Sitting on my rittle throne ...

Nothing better to end a important day with making fun of Kim Jong Il.

~Ken