Athena

“Congratulations! You’ve been promoted!” boomed the editor of our great news channel  on a bright Monday morning bringing to me immense joy-which was short lived.  “Thank you sir!” I said beaming with joy “oh, no need to thank, we were running short of staff for the Sunday news bulletin. I figured you’d make a good subeditor for Sunday.”

Damn.

I used to be a video editor for Sunday bulletin in my early time at our great news channel. The sub-editor designated for that day had left the channel in pursuit of better opportunities and senior subeditors were being rotated on Sunday duty. However, the management seemed to figure that one year of experience must have given me enough skill to handle this terrifying job no one was ready to accept permanently.

The office wore a deserted look on Sundays as most of the staff would be on leave. The bulletin would often consist of stale news about cultural programmes or inaugurations of public utilities like toilets and bridges.  Our office full of hardworking Germans on weekdays would be chilled and laid back like Greece on weekends resulting in inevitable draught of revenue-fresh news.

I came to the office, triumphantly sat on the chief sub-editors chair and for the first five minutes  had countless daydreams while enjoying the feeling of being a boss.  However, when the video editor knocked on my cubicle citing that he had received no scripts, panic began to set in. 

Clicking furiously on my system, I found that only four stale stories had been dumped making a bulletin of about four and half minutes. The rest would have to be found and exaggerated and if need be, created! 

Sending the sole reporter I had at my disposal to scavenge the city for news, I began to wreck my brains to twist the stories published in the news papers and squeeze them into the Sunday news bulletin.   Reading the news paper is the cleverest thing I did that day.  The front page carried a news about Greek debt crisis and the moment my eyes fell upon the word Athens, my panic was replaced with hope. I had found my savior.

A journalist who could pull news out of raw info like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat. The say she knows everything and everyone in the corridors of power and thus they call her after the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom.

Athena

“Heyy, Wazzup!!” she shouted in her usual excited tone the moment I dilled the phone. “Listen, if you’re calling to get the sunburn passes, call Odette...” “I am in no mood for party Athena, I am the sub-editor for Sunday bulletins its messed up big time.”

“Draught or plenty what pains do you bear? Today is Sunday! Why should I care?”

Ah, now that I forgot to tell you. Athena’s brain overflows with poems and puns. In fact her addiction to puns combined with her healthy cherubic constitution like a cute panda has earned her the nickname the giant pun-da.

“We’re short of stories. It’s a draught.” “Alright so lets spin a story then! Get back to you soon” Aha! The ever busy Athena had found time to help a pauper in need! I thanked the almighty from the bottom of my heart.

Athena worked as a subeditor for ‘the other great news channel’ who is our competitor. She had some pretty good contacts and she could build stories from scratch without getting off the desk, an art she would use to help me out today. “alright now get all the news papers you have in your office and find the story that you think is the most awesome. “Goa barge owners association calls for strike.” “barghe owners huh? Ok, now Mukul Jadhav is the president of GBOA. I will text you his number, send your reporter to take a small one minute byte.”

“Done.”

“So that takes care of one story, how much is the total bulletin now?” “Seven minutes”  “JJ, a thirty minute bulletin includes a ten minute beak which means the final bulletin should be twenty minutes.”  Athena was really getting into the mood. “You will need about 7 more stories. How much time do we have?”

“Four hours” I was panic struck again as I noticed time was running out.

“Alright now most of village gram sabhas are held on Sundays-you’ll find the advertisements in the papers announcing the village meetings” “Found. They’re all special meetings to discuss the Goa regional plan. We've got some visuals, I will do a story.”  “Oh no you don’t,  lets have some fun here!”  “What?”

“Lets do this story my way” “you mean the social network?” “Exactly”

Fine,  I typed a news item

“While the opposition to regional plan continues in Gram Sabhas across the state, the social networks are no exception”

What to do next?

“You on Twitter? “yes” “awesome now find out what people are saying about regional plan on twitter.  Use a hashtag to find info.”   I quietly did some  googling and found that there was no hashtag for Goa regional plan2021. “No hashtag? Alright we’ll create one.” Within minutes, information  and online reactions from dozens of people about the regional plan began surfacing on Twitter with a consistent speed. 

"You're using  fake accounts to project mixed popular reactions. Ahtena, is a public lie!"

"What nonsense? the accounts may be fake but the information is genuine! we do this all the time! its not lying, its spinning! it is called the art of spinning!
 

“ now, the information is available on twitter under the hashtag #RP2021. She stated “I will build a little story using Storify app. You record the movements on the computer, write up a voiceover and record it directly. Understood?” “Yes.” I lied while googling desperately to learn what is Storify and how can I record movements on screen directly. It took me one hour to learn these things. Athena took one and half to build a story out of online responses of her own fake personalities. I wrote a quick voice over and let it roll.

“Done.”  I told her. 

“Go to freeplaymusic.com and find some good music for the story. Make it a little three minute documentary and your bulletin is done.”Wow! I felt liberated a major part of the product was finished.  Obeying Athena’s instructions to the letter, I had twisted the newspaper reports to  make some average news items. Only five more minutes of footage was required.

“Five minutes huh? Ok, you may not like this, but lets take the art of spinning to the next level.” 

Oh my god, what now?

“Let’s do a story on European debt crisis.”

What? Didn’t she know ours is a small LOCAL news channel?

“Yes, we link it to Goa citing how tourism in Goa is affected due to troubles in Europe!”

But we’d need some data for that. Statistics! Where do I get that from?

“Travel and Tourism Association of Goa. Ralph D Souza is the president.  Tell him to mention June or July 2011 tourist figures and just say that it was all due to European debt crisis.”  But tourism is already low in monsoon “exactly! and they cinside with the Greek austarity vote! ”

But then how are they linked to the European crisis? “Duh, what’s the need? Just get a person in authority to say it is so and it makes our news.”  But the…” “JJ we’re professionals doing a business, not social workers doing people a favour.  NOW DO WHAT I SAY”

I did what she said for the sake of work but the feeling of guilt at having to make a mountain out of a molehill that I got that day has only increased as I continue to work in this field doing things beyond a common mans wildest imagination. Even as I slowly gather skill in art of which Athena is the master, Athena’s words continue to ring in my ears whenever I question my professional actions

“Draught or plenty what pains do you bear,

I’m not a social worker why should I care?

I am a journalist I publish your issues

Not wipe your tears with love-filled tissues

Protests by peace corps or military sorties

To hell with their causes they’re just good stories

Heartbreaking funerals or jubilant parties

NEVER GET INVOLVED, THEY’RE JUST GOOD STORIES”

Note: story completely fictional.