Brennan, the boy journalist, has story of his own at Games (Feature)

By Sebastian Fest Feb 24, 2010, 18:34 GMT

Vancouver - Brennan LaBrie is no sportsman, but he holds one of the most curious records of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver: he is the most precocious journalist in Olympic history.

'Brennan, stop reading the papers!'

The boy, aged 10, attributes the sentence to his mother, overwhelmed by the mountains of newspapers her son reads.

'I was always curious. My mum says that one of the first things I ever learnt to say was, 'why?'' the young American tells the German Press Agency dpa.

Even as his friends were at school, Brennan spent a week-and-a-half covering the Winter Olympics. LaBrie is disconcerting, because he talks with the fluency, the speed and the vocabulary of an adult.

He was chosen for Time For Kids - the children's edition of Time magazine, which has 3.5 million subscribers - in September from among 12 candidates who had previously been shortlisted among 400 children. LaBrie could hardly believe he was going to the Olympics.

'But they told me the prize was just to go there for one day. 'No way!' I told them. If I go to the Games it is to be with the sportspeople, to see them, to talk to them, not to visit.'

And it was a done deal: Brennan embarked with Colleen, his mother, and Jack Olmsted, his mentor, en route to Vancouver.

He did not get accreditation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), so he worked out of the British Columbia Media Centre (BCMC), a comfortable space for journalists who were watching the Games from the outside.

But that hardly means that Brennan missed anything: during the Olympics, he interviewed stars like snowboarder Shaun White, speed skater Apolo Ohno or figure skater Rachel Flatt.

'What is your answer to those who say the halfpipe is dangerous?' LaBrie asked White.

LaBrie is no child prodigy, but he is something similar. His usual day starts at 6 am, for violin and French lessons. Then, he goes to school till 3.30 pm.

'And then I read the newspapers, all the newspapers, at home. Sometimes my mum throws them away and I go back to look for an article that I forgot to read,' he says.

With a penetrating, self-assured glance, LaBrie puts across a surprising image of confidence.

'I read the papers to relax, I don't think of it as a job,' says LaBrie.

But he was also school champion in the 60 and 100 metres athletics races, he played American football and he is starting to skate.

'I want to travel the world as a journalist. Travelling and journalism, I want to bring together my two passions,' he says as he hands over his business card.

The card features two occupations: editor of the Spruce Street Weekly and reporter for Time for Kids (www.timeforkids.com).

He first read a paper when he was eight. It was The Leader, the local publication for Port Townsend, a town of 7,000 people near Seattle, near the Canadian border.

Brennan lives on Spruce Street, and the Spruce Street Weekly already has 250 subscribers.

'It has two pages. I do my own comics and jokes,' he says before naming the New York Times as his favourite daily.

Always with a notepad on hand, he takes his job as an editor very seriously.

'At first I thought my daily had to focus only on good news. But if someone dies you have to tell that, you cannot make a newspaper only with good news.'

He never had a television set - 'it broadcasts stupid and useless stuff, there are better things to do' - but he has a memory that may be defined as photographic.

'When we go shopping at the supermarket he identifies all the cars in the parking lot,' his mother says. 'So he tells me, 'Hey, Rob's back from his holiday!' And he tells me exactly who we are going to run into inside.'

A vegetarian, Brennan has a younger brother, Bodie, who is about as different from him as he could be: impulsive and physically powerful.

'But they get along very well, they have great sibling connection,' Colleen says.

Then, she reveals one of the limitations that child journalists cannot overcome.

'He writes for Time for Kids, but he does not get paid for it,' she says.

Brennan does not mind, he wants to be a journalist.

'I want to go to the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, to those in London, to Sochi, to Rio. And I want to be a journalist who writes about everything that happens in this world.'