It’s Davos week again. Heads of state, business leaders, top scholars and celebrities have gathered at the alpine town in Switzerland for the “elite” World Economic Forum (WEF). At a super busy event like Davos, reporters run from interview spot to interview spot, traipsing in boots or high heels between different studios on snow-covered icy roads in temperatures under -15 degrees Celsius. We call it lucky if reporters still have time to change clothes before live broadcasts or shooting. As CGTN’s anchors and reporters interview the world’s most powerful or richest people, such as US Vice President Joe Biden or China’s Jack Ma and Wang Jianlin, we try to show you scenes behind the stories – and they are not always so glamorous.

Here’s 24 hours in the life of CGTN’s business news anchor Cheng Lei on January 16, the day before the WEF officially starts.  

Keep waking up to check emails, confirming guests, studios and technical issues for television live broadcast. Accommodation is always a stretch in Davos, this year I, my colleague and friend Jack Barton, and our cameramen Daniel Cawthorne and John Reid, are lucky that we rented a cozy skiers’ lodge.

Have a big breakfast (fruit and juice, poached eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans) while shooting the breeze with our crew – for Davos, you need a hefty breakfast because you don’t know when the next meal is coming – if ever.

Set up live-cross post at the Waldhotel balcony, with the Swiss mountains, ice-dusted coniferous forests, and a very professional team looking after our satellite technical needs.

My guest Nik Gowing, a three-decade veteran of the BBC and now a visiting professor at King’s College London, is about as good an interviewee as one can hope for in these times --  his "Think the Unthinkable" initiative is revealing the failures of leadership.

Live broadcast starts. During the program, I introduce Nik, ask him questions, to which he answers extremely eloquently and with insight, I wrap and send things back to the studio.  

Jack Barton, CGTN’s correspondent, gets some soundbites from Nik for his story. As reporters, you grab materials wherever you can. He has a broken arm in a sling and is shooting the interview one-armed, just as he has been driving…in the snow.

CCTV’s Mandarin team is also doing a live hit at the location – Jack is talking side by side with Huang Feng, one in English, one in Chinese, both have to try filtering out the voice of the other. The reporter needs to forget everything, the frozen fingers and any other physical discomfort, distractions like people moving, voices coming out of the earpiece. Even if my hair caught fire, I’d need to look composed, finish what I have to say, and perhaps shrug it off as a minor nuisance.

Get media registration. Already the traffic is clogging up Davos’ small streets. I check out the promenade’s buildings and signs to see which companies are doing what – the Russians are still in Kaffee Klatsch, Facebook doesn’t have flags out this year, Palantir has expanded.

Get inside the media village, where a work-space has been booked, this lockable cubicle is a godsend because we can leave our heavy equipment there instead of lugging it home every night. I finally get to go to the toilet.

Back to the live-cross spot. This time I’m with two guests, Tom Blackwell of EM, Honson To of KPMG China. I get smart and don gloves, because holding a microphone in -14 degrees Celsius and gusty weather was not fun in the morning. During our live, the wind blows so hard snow starts to powder our faces while the tarpaulin above us threatens to almost rip. Skipped lunch.

My first interview for this year’s Davos begins, I’m joined by Rich Lessor, CEO of BCG, who is on Donald Trump’s business advisory council. The Belvedere Hotel is home to many, many moneyed companies – financial services mostly. The Zurich café corner has a cake made to look like a pie chart of risk. You can have your risk and eat it too. 

We discover to our dismay that the BCG office is too poky, has a big window and a glass wall, conditions to make any cameraman rip his hair out. But I am with Daniel, who in fractions of seconds, can size up an impossible situation and start acting on the most doable option. He understands the matrix of time and aesthetics and always makes it work. Rich is a wonderful interviewee because he is clear, insightful and genuine. It is reassuring to know that Trump has men like him giving him advice.

We leg it back to the media village, I’m regretting with every pained step the choice of footwear -Patent stiletto boots. After listening to the answers and writing infographics, Daniel feeds the interview to CGTN Headquarters in Beijing.

Book interview rooms for the next day, apply for rotations (a cruel fact of WEF reporting, if you only have a technical badge you need to ask for entry into the Congress Centre, which then necessitates waiting outside for an escort to meet you at the door.).

Check out the media reception at the Hilton hotel – far too many dour journo faces. I have a drink and leave.

Meet up with the team again at hotel, Jack has been doing back-to-back live hits – surviving on coffee and professionalism alone.

Finally time for bed!

(Edited by Dang Zheng; photos taken by Cheng Lei)