Students in American University’s Discover the World of Communication professional news-writing program visited on Wednesday Bloomberg’s Washington D.C. news headquarters to see how a professional media outlet runs.
The professionalism of the Bloomberg offices gave the aspiring journalists high expectations for their future careers.
“If I weren’t interested in sports I could definitely see myself working there,” said DWC student Sam Goldfarb, 15.
Students arrived at the New York Avenue office building in downtown Washington and took the elevator up to the top floor. At its district branch, Bloomberg has offices on the 8th, 10th and 11th floors.
“All Bloomberg offices are on the top floor,” said Margaret Talev, 43, Bloomberg’s White House correspondent.
At Bloomberg bureaus Talev explained the company always occupies the top floor, has an aquarium and displays fresh flowers.
Students also noted that journalists were grouped into cubicles based on the subject they cover. Each person had two monitors: one with Bloomberg’s internal system and another used to write articles or access the internet.
“It was a lot bigger than I expected,” said Goldfarb, who had previously visited Comcast Sportsnet’s D.C. offices.
The 11th floor is home to TV and radio personnel, as well as the snack bar and makeup room. Tours aren’t open to the public, but the staff created a welcoming environment for the students and encouraged them to ask questions.
Students had to remain quiet as they passed by one man reading out stock information into a microphone as he concluded a radio broadcast.
After visiting the snack bar, students took the stairs down to the 10th floor, where the print journalists work, and where the television studio is housed. Students visited the TV studio and observed the teleprompters and microphones that are central to a television operation.
The print journalists’ offices share the same cubicle layout as the 11th floor. Columns dispersed among the cubicles were wallpapered with news articles.
On the 8th floor, students met with famed Bloomberg journalist Albert Hunt. Hunt spent 39 years at T
he Wall Street Journal before moving to Bloomberg news in 2005.
Hunt gave students a key piece of writing advice: be concise and simple.
“If I don’t understand a story in the first three paragraphs the odds are I’m going to stop reading it,” Hunt said.
Hunt encouraged students to pursue journalism because it allowed writers to meet people from a variety of backgrounds.
“In journalism, everyone you meet is interesting,” said Hunt.