Sunday, December 20, 2009

It's Sunday and time for work.


A newsroom duty shift at this time of year is agonising if there's no big news story on the go.
It involves phoning the cops, emergency services and traffic authorities for news checks.
Monitoring other media in case they know about something you don't.
And checking the news wires for updates, news snippets and breaking news alerts. Generally the wire stories are one long scrolling lists of traffic wraps, weather updates at holiday destinations, the odd political announcement (e.g the Minister for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilitieshas called on parents not to abandon their children during the festive season when they hit the shebeens over Christmas and New Year - as apparently is the custom in some places), the holiday road death toll and stuff like that.
And so a day in the newsroom, with glorious weather outside and virtually everyone you know enjoying a holiday, can be torturous. And oh so depressingly loooong.

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