From the desk of Ren LaForme

http://www.ubspectrum.com/article/118

When I contacted the Office of Special Events to get Kofi Annan tickets for The Spectrum, Director Bill Regan presented me with an opportunity I couldn’t pass up — I could interview Kofi Annan.

I’ve spoken to a handful of other famous people before, including Ralph Nader and Ishmael Beah, but never someone as worldly or influential as Annan.

I immediately began pondering what sorts of questions to ask him. Should I take the role of a serious reporter and ask him hard questions about his failure to protect Rwanda from the genocide that occurred there in the mid-’90s? Should I ask him the stupid questions that the other on-campus publication would probably ask?

I even probed Facebook to see what other people would ask him.

Finally, I decided to ask almost totally serious questions, though they weren’t too probing, with one fun one at the end.

When I walked into the room I was a little bit starstruck. There was Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations — a man that has met countless world leaders —  justing sitting there at a table signing books. However, the feeling wore off completely once I began asking him questions.

I thought it would be nice to print a raw interview with Annan and I’m satisfied with the way it turned out. I hope to print more raw interviews for the next distinguished speakers in the series.

http://www.ubspectrum.com/article/116

I have mixed feelings about covering speeches and press conferences. In general, the information is all right there, making the article quick and easy and somewhat pain free. However, I tend to document much more information than necessary, which makes it harder to pull a decent story together in the end.

This article was no different. I went to Annan’s speech, sat in the second row and diligently wrote down everything he said (on top of recording it, but don’t tell the Man). When I sat down, I spent a significant amount of time sifting through information to find the main point of his lecture.

Despite this, I’m fairly content with the way the article turned out. The adviser to The Spectrum, Charity Vogel of the Buffalo News, gave me some great tips and I think the article really benefitted from them.

Thanks, Charity!

http://www.ubspectrum.com/article/113

At the last minute we realized that we neglected to run a preview of Kofi Annan’s lecture. We generally always preview distinguished speakers, so I decided to write a quick bio.

Since it was so late in production, it ended up being Web only. There was a small box on the front page of the print issue advertising this fact.