By Chitra Ahanthem
Having stayed off from doing the routine news reporting for IFP earlier, the run up to the recently concluded Assembly Elections brought in a situation: yours truly needed to be in the news loop. IFP also needed sub edit support as winter ailments had kept away some of the desk people. The news collation combined with the sub editing at office left some very fascinating insights and experiences. Before we come to the IFP beat, there is one more media related anecdote to be shared here. Going along with a CNN-IBN team doing a half hour docu-news program on the Manipur elections, I happened to step into the office of a certain political party whose President was interviewed for the program. And because I was the ‘local’ face, I got endless calls asking when that Party President’s interview would air. Not that I knew when the program would air. But try telling that to the over enthusiastic person at the end of the line! As it turned out, only a 10-15 second byte of the honorable President was used and his visual was shown only once. His media contact called me and complained why such a long interview was taken and only 15 seconds of his Party President’s sound byte was used at the end of it. All explanations of the final program being decided by the CNN-IBN team and not puny me did not wash. The media contact for the political party actually turned around and said to me: “your byte was more longer and you spoke twice.” That sounded like it was my fault!
Some highlights of the mad moments are really worth sharing: with daily reports of bombs and IEDs being planted here, there and everywhere, it was practical for me to have a template to fill in every day. All I would do before I left for home would be to sit down with the crime beat journalist and have him list out a) bombs found in (where, when and at whose residence/locality) b) IEDs found in (where, when and at whose residence/locality) and c) hand grenades found in (where, when and at whose residence/locality). My template was designed in the exact manner and all I had to fill in were the names of the persons and places. Morbid? Insensitive? It saved me time though. In any case, how different can one write about bombs being found in an almost routine manner every day?
One must make a note for the kind of weird bit of ‘news’ that came in. Someone from another newspaper called to ask us at IFP whether we had heard an ISTV news that some 200 crore rupees had been seized from the CM. We went into a tail-spin trying to verify the news and probably ended up adding on to the wild goose chase. After things sobered down, it turned out that a national news channel had done a story about the assets and income declaration of sitting MLAs contesting the elections while questioning the small amount declared by the CM. So the confirmed news wasn’t much news in the end! The other bit of news that cracked us all at the desk was an incident of a bomb blast that left two poor dogs killed.
On the reporting beat, there isn’t much fun in press meets and press conferences. The media is supposed to sit through patiently and hear all allegations and at the end of the session be bombarded with requests for “more space” and “can you make this the lead news?” They make you feel so damn uncomfortable acting as if their lives depended on how much space their news would appear the next day and in which part of the page! I also have issues with how ISTV cameras always pan on journalists at press conferences. Normally news channels don’t take camera shots of the journalists but take visuals of the people speaking at the press meets. I don’t think for one second that journalists need to be in the picture at all or that they are more important than the reason for which the press conferences are being held, no matter how mundane or boring it turns out to be. But ISTV seems to have some sort of fixation for the local journalists at press conferences.
There is another complexity that a journalist or reporter faces in his/her social interactions. I have faced many instances where I am not in my “reporting” mind frame while speaking to government officials or employees who happen to be either friends or acquaintances. Simple questions of asking over issues of being dissatisfied with their work or even a query on what they are up to in terms of their work are almost met with suspicious answers. Most often, they clam up and one ends up trying to explain that you are NOT digging for a story. Isn’t it normal to ask about any one else in their social circles how work is going for them?
End-point:
And then there’s this other story. When election took place on January 28, we went scurrying all over the place following what was happening around us. The day ended for me at the RIMS morgue where the bodies of the election polling personnel at the Tampi polling and firing incident were being brought in. A rookie photographer called me with great concern and asked me: “should I take a bath since I have entered the morgue?” The question left me stumped at first but later I realized where his concern came from. As a society where a lot of things are considered taboo and “impure”, his concern was genuine. But, how could I decide what he should do once he got home? So I did the best thing under the circumstances and told him that I don’t think twice of being around dead bodies. But the ultimate twist to election- day was IFP could not hit the news-stands the next day: the generator had given up on us! All efforts up in smoke!
