Introducing The Reporter

In the Beginning

AFTER several seconds of thinking it over, I finally decided to kick my ass and start this series of notes that I shouldn’t be revealing in the first place.

Call it something like business secrets or tricks of the trade that no one should be divulging, and here I am crossing the lines.

Unlike any book that has a table of contents and an orderly arrangement of chapters, don’t expect me to be telling stories that way, but rather be prepared for a disoriented, jumbled confusion of bewildering memories as they occur every now and then.

I also won’t make promises of how frequently can I add entries here, that would depend on how I conquer bouts of laziness that attacks every so often, and huge boulders of writer’s blocks.

So why are we here again?    Oh I remember. 

INTRODUCING 'THE REPORTER'

So, how do you think the stories in the newspaper you are reading every morning while sipping coffee or while on a break came about?Or in these modern times, how do you think did those stories land in the pages of the websites that you open at midnight or in real time for breaking news without the agony of waiting for physical copies of the newspapers to be delivered?

Well, I've got a story to tell you. The stories and photos that fill up the blank pages did not materialize overnight by magic, slapped by some unknown hand while you were sleeping.Behind each page of the newspapers and web pages are (crazy) people trying to live normal lives, people whose lives exist and revolve around deadlines and story quotas, people who can’t even go out on dates without thinking about work and what to write for the next day, people who wake up to the ringing of the phone in the dead of the night (if they sleep at all) to hear someone’s angry litany at the other end of the line who was not pleased at how the story was written, people who deny what they said earlier when they see it on print, and people who threaten to sue them for stories that they don’t like.

These people who are ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice rarely have a moment of peace, and they have a name. They are called reporters. They are a bunch of courageous people who are not scared to poke at issues that are better left alone even at gun point (oh, not at gun point please), not scared to face presidents and governors and hurl unthinkable questions that ordinary mortals can’t or won’t do yet these people shrink and quake in fear (or irritation) at the voice of someone more powerful in the newsroom.

He/she has a name—The Editor. The almighty one who decides what story gets in the paper and where, the being who puts the paper to bed. Oh the volumes of stories reporters can write about editors—stories than could make him or her want to go back to being a reporter, but that will be a whole new series.

Stay tuned for more adventures…we haven’t started yet. Or maybe we have. The worst is yet to come. :-D

(Oh, reporters don’t be too scared. I will leave out the really juicy (spelled gross) secrets that shouldn’t be out of our circle. That’s a promise.)