Juggling between law and religion
A glimpse at the travails and various faces of reporter in the field
A glimpse at the travails and various faces of reporter in the field. STOCK IMAGE
Court reports are concerned mostly with either lawyers or
judges. They hardly ever deal with the court staffers who are
the single most important source of such stories. This means a
court reporter faces an uphill task in finding sources that can
be helpful in digging deep and unearthing exclusive stories
from courts.
A considerable amount of my daytime since I started reporting
on courts in 2006 has been spent just in engaging with
the staff. I have spent numerous hours in their offices, sipping
tea and discussing various issues. Between February 10,
2010 when I joined the Tribune team and April 12, 2010,
when the paper went into print, a lot of my time in the field
was spent correcting court staffers on the name of the paper.
Most of them would mistake Tribune in The Express Tribune to
mean the more familiar word Tribunal. It wasn’t before various
such mistakes that they would start pronouncing the correct
name. I lately have also been reporting on matters pertaining
to religious minorities as well as activities of religious political
parties. It has been tricky to report on the two issues at the
same time. I have had to employ different strategies to keep a
low profile. At times, this meant that I had to shun enclosures
set aside for the media at public gatherings of these religious
parties and instead cover the event from the crowd.
I have used my editors to my advantage as well. If a source
provided me a story that I knew was mere propaganda, I could
trash it and blame it on the desk. There were also instances
where I had to choose whether or not to report a story that involved
one of my sources at the risk of losing the source. I would request the desk to carry the story without giving me the credit.
judges. They hardly ever deal with the court staffers who are
the single most important source of such stories. This means a
court reporter faces an uphill task in finding sources that can
be helpful in digging deep and unearthing exclusive stories
from courts.
A considerable amount of my daytime since I started reporting
on courts in 2006 has been spent just in engaging with
the staff. I have spent numerous hours in their offices, sipping
tea and discussing various issues. Between February 10,
2010 when I joined the Tribune team and April 12, 2010,
when the paper went into print, a lot of my time in the field
was spent correcting court staffers on the name of the paper.
Most of them would mistake Tribune in The Express Tribune to
mean the more familiar word Tribunal. It wasn’t before various
such mistakes that they would start pronouncing the correct
name. I lately have also been reporting on matters pertaining
to religious minorities as well as activities of religious political
parties. It has been tricky to report on the two issues at the
same time. I have had to employ different strategies to keep a
low profile. At times, this meant that I had to shun enclosures
set aside for the media at public gatherings of these religious
parties and instead cover the event from the crowd.
I have used my editors to my advantage as well. If a source
provided me a story that I knew was mere propaganda, I could
trash it and blame it on the desk. There were also instances
where I had to choose whether or not to report a story that involved
one of my sources at the risk of losing the source. I would request the desk to carry the story without giving me the credit.