Forrest Gumps? Nah!

``When XYZ came to Hyderabad, I went running to ABC, a far flung suburb, to get his interview…all the reporters here were running that day after him,’’ said a colleague a couple of years ago just when I had moved to Hyderabad. Soon, I realized that a lot more reporters I came across in the city measured their quality of work from the miles that they had run for the story and not the story’s content.
For instance, they would have run a hundred miles for a press conference and termed their 248-word report on the same as ``valuable’’ contribution, not to journalism, but to fill space.
I have never been able to understand this yardstick of measuring quality of reports__ the distance traveled for a report that is. So, if one goes to, say, Hi Tech City in Hyderabad everyday, his/her work is the best qualitatively? Is the quality of stories reflected in how worn out your shoes are?
Cover a workshop on `mind management’ just because the other reporters too were `running’ around covering similar inane stuff or being asked by a fresh college grad to cover an elocution as there was nothing better happening in the city __ suggestions of this nature were made to me routinely to ensure that I ran as well. Memories of covering some of these `important’ news events such as one earth-shattering kids and dogs carnival will make me shudder even in my grave, am sure.
I write this because I see this person everyday, running, even when going to the loo. What could be the breaking news there…I wonder. The person runs up and down, left and right all day, through the month. I watch the person with disinterest my head shaking the way it would while watching a lawn tennis match.
Not too long ago the person was running to get a report on some politician who had written a poem!! Yet another reporter ran to get a quote from a breaucrat on his plans for the city (innovative, indeed). Not to forget this one person (a non-runner) who was made to run to find out how people were reacting to bus conductors opting to shout to the bus driver to start the bus than making the `ting-ting’ signal by pulling the string.
Well… I choose to use my running shoes more judiciously.