A few months back, I got an email with the subject line:
interview request (Fortune magazine - U.S.)
“Ooh, sounds interesting”, I thought. I read on…
I’ve been tasked with writing a profile of you from my tech editor at Fortune, a business magazine in the U.S.
I’m headed to Brighton this weekend and hoping we can meet up. Can you call me at +X XXX XXX XXX as soon as you can? Thanks. I’ll try you on your mobile in a few minutes.
Sounded urgent! “I’d better call him straight away”, I thought. So I did just that. It went to voicemail. The voicemail inbox was full. I couldn’t leave a message.
So I sent him an email and eventually we managed to have a phone conversation together. Richard—for that is his name—told me about the article he wanted to write about the “scene” in Brighton. He asked if there was anyone else I thought he should speak to. I was more than happy to put him in touch with Rosa and Dot, Jacqueline, Jonathan, and other lovely people behind Brighton institutions like Codebar, Curiosity Hub, and The Skiff. We also arranged to meet up when he came to town.
The day of Richard’s visit rolled around and I spent the afternoon showing him around town and chatting. He seemed somewhat distracted but occasionally jotted down notes in response to something I said.
The resultant article is online now. It’s interesting to see which of my remarks were used in the end …and the way that what looks like direct quotes are actually nothing of the kind. Still, that’s way that journalism tends to work—far more of a subjective opinionated approach than simply objectively documenting.
The article focuses a lot on San Francisco, and Richard’s opinions of the scene there. It makes for an interesting read, but it’s a little weird to see quotes attributed to me interspersed amongst a strongly-worded criticism of a city I don’t live in.
Still, the final result is a good read. And I really, really like the liberal sprinkling of hyperlinks throughout—more of this kind of thing in online articles, please!
There is one hyperlink omission though. It’s in this passage where Richard describes what I’m eating as we chatted:
“But here’s the thing I love about this town,” said Keith, in between bites of a sweet corn fritter, at the festival’s launch party this year. “It cares as much about art and education as about tech and commerce.”
That sweet corn fritter was from CanTina. Very tasty it was too.