Refresh @ 10 - VIII

APART from the classic definition of news as ‘dog bites man’ there can be numerous ways in which a trainee reporter finds what constitutes news. The experience can be sometimes hilarious. It was probably the second month of my traineeship at The Indian Express, and hence a period of excited learning on the job. The Resident Editor of the edition had come visiting from Ahmedabad. Perhaps a cow had roughed the edges of his car, or some such thing, because he was livid that Baroda had more cows and fewer helmets on the roads than Ahmedabad. Promptly a campaign was decided. One of my colleagues was deputed to find out the status of cow containment by municipal authorities and yours truly was asked to take up helmet wearing as a campaign of sorts, as health was my beat at the moment. Meeting over, I left for the SSG Hospital as it was the hub of the beat. There, at the Medico-Legal Office (MLO) where all police cases would be registered, I came to know that a case had reached the hospital in which a rider had fallen off his bike and the accident had proved fatal. And guess what, he was trying to avoid a cow! It was like hitting two birds with a single stone. I immediately called up the bureau chief in excitement. Believe it his excitement was even more uncontainable. He shouted: “Excellent!!! Great, get the story,” before commanding what all he wanted in it. It was a stark if a little funny initiation into what constitutes news. A boy had to lose his life to fit into a journalist’s idea of a great day’s work.