The good, the bad and the ugly of news reporting

Yet, during my years on the news beat, painful times have kicked in occasionally. As a young reporter fresh out of college, I had to deal with stuff which was not taught in university. At Thammasat University, we read the Bangkok Post and Asian Wall Street Journal. We studied them, but only as part of our class on analytical reading. For students majoring in English, news writing was not part of the mandatory writing class. So when I entered a newsroom for the first time, everything was a new challenge – particularly how to write a first paragraph that would keep readers reading through to the last.

As a young reporter, you were expected to take any assignment, no questions asked. At press conferences or interviews, you were under pressure to gather all the information needed and then finish your story within the deadline. A phone ring the next morning would often spark a dread familiar to all reporters – that you had got the facts wrong or included information that offended a third party.

Along the way, I had to grow up. Growing up in a newsroom means taking on editorial responsibility. Yes, you have stories to select and pages to close. If you have junior reporters in the team, you have to guide them. With pages to take care of, you have to plan in advance the number and type of stories you need for the day. You need to gauge what you have in store, and possible replacements should your planned stories turn out not to be newsworthy. Certainly, that pressure killed the initial joy of journalism.

Believe me, this is something that happens to all reporters once they get promoted. Recently I met a friend who works for a big Thai-language newspaper company. She has just been promoted and is now afflicted with the headache of managing pages plus a four-member team.

She knows that if she handles the pressure well, another promotion is waiting for her. The size of the team under her supervision will expand. Public relations companies will be scrambling to get her phone numbers so as to secure print space for their clients’ news.

During my 22 years, I have learnt two important lessons.

First, you encounter a large number of people as part of your day-to-day work. Some will become good friends outside of work – others you will want to avoid anywhere. After more than a decade of covering business news, I tried something new with the features desk. I was shocked when the rep for a PR company that was dealing mostly with business-related stuff pretended that she didn’t know me. Soon after, I returned to Business Desk and she shamelessly resumed the friendship.

Second, reporters perform their duty in a seductive and yet elusive environment. There are invitations to fancy lunches and dinners, or interviews with big shots.

When Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong uttered his now infamous “white lie” confession, reporters who heard it firsthand were in high demand. Everyone wanted to know if he had been pressured into the admission. The reporters knew the truth, and they were the ones who revealed that Kittiratt had not been pressured by any reporter.

In another episode, Thais excited about the first superjumbo delivered by Airbus to Thai Airways International last week should also know that the building in Toulouse, France, where the delivery ceremony took place was reserved for airline bigwigs and members of the press. How many people realise that all planes sold by Airbus are flown to their new airlines directly from Toulouse Airport, not Paris? At Toulouse, guests participating in the delivery are greeted by special check-in and immigration counters and treated like VIPs. Once onboard, we can sit anywhere we like and enjoy the free-flowing food and drink. There is one condition: please don’t spill anything on the pristine seats.

Accustomed to this treatment over the years, many members of the press have come to consider themselves VIPs. They demand special treatment. Reporters from the biggest newspapers tend to become the herd leaders. Some are influential enough to order that only their “friends” be invited to join a press conference or a junket. As these top dogs are from newspapers with large circulations, many companies are afraid to lose their favour.

Another ugly side of the ink business lies with decisions made in the newsroom. In “Spider-Man”, the editor of the Daily Bugle made the decision that, whatever the news, there must be the photos of the superhero on the front page every day. This kind of decision-making  happens in the real world, too. Without a direct speakerphone link with the editor, reporters will occasionally find their strong pieces are bumped from the front page. 

Well, that kills the joy too. But I have to admit that the thrill is still there. And it will remain, as long as there is space for your stories – stories you think readers want to read (and, if you are lucky, readers think so too).