BITTEN BY THE BYTES

But long ago, when ever you went to a family function or a private meeting and got. Yourself introduced as a journalist, there would be an instant pause. Your interlocutor and the people around would perk up. The tone would become one of respect and the gaze, one of admiration. They felt that a man of importance was in their midst.
Quite simply, a journalist, they believed, was a man of words and intellect. A walking symbol of learning and erudition. I 'After all, you are the people who write all those editorials,' they would vaguely say as if the whole paper were all editorials. It was a different matter that most of them wouldn't know how an editorial looked, leave alone how it read.
Anyway, you knew what your looks, mien and abilities would otherwise have entailed. So you never bothered to set the equation straight. Why rock a sinking ship? And then somebody else would chip in and say, 'is not journalism very dangerous?'
In normal times, you would have laughed your guts out. For, you know the real and potent danger for a reporter on the beat was from
Cirrhosis (of the liver) than from any assumed enemy. But you quietly refrained from scoring a silly self-goal and let the man live with his illusions.
Then someone else would, unable to hide the overriding curiosity, blurt out: 'How and where do you get all the news?' 'Amazing,' he
would nod to himself without even waiting for your response.
Then again, in such times, you smiled with such vague certitude that no one would have had. The mind to prod further. And no matter what, no- I body could fathom what I the structure and designation in a newspaper office was. 'You are a correspondent or what?' someone would ask incredulously. 'Never knew you were also running a school in your office,' he would say rolling his eyes in enthusiastic bewilderment.
Then at one party, one man sidled up to you and, afte~ talking with general vagueness (journalists are good in such middling conversations) about many things, quietly chimed, Tell me, what does a resident editor do? Does he not ever come to the office? Then why have him around?' You almost stumbled in recoil over the lime cordial in your hand. .~
There was this institute which kept sending invitations in the name of the editor but with designation 'subeditor'. Discreet inquiries revealed that the secretary of the institute (a doctorate no less) believed that a sub-editor was higher in the newspaper pecking order than an editor.
An editor... himself, many felt, was the person in charge of cutting and pasting news on the page. And in the newspaper itself, it was popularly believed. that the first page was finished first and the last last.
But that was nearly a decade ago.
Now a succession of TV channels and a plethora of TV reporters have shown up journalists for what they are. The thing is people are not any wiser about journalism; but they are about journalists.
Now when you go to a function and introduce yourself as journalist, the very same people who' looked up to you with reverence, just look through you. There is an unstated air of fun and frivolity.
Nobody asks for your opinion on any subject. They just give theirs and wonder whether you have brought your cameraman along. And when you ask why. they shoot back, 'the other man who we met on the beach had a mike in his hand and a cameraman-in tow'.
The other day I did a phone-in when I was in the 100,' another says. 'And they thought the sound of the flush to be a fault in the
line,' he says giggling in uncontrollable fits over his unexpected turn of phrase. Last seen, the whole gang was still rolling in the aisles in laughter. During election time, things get from bad to worse; even the street dogs run for cover upon espying an advancing journalist. You never know he might be short on bytes (TV journalese for quotes) and may be looking for a bark or two.
Anyway, it doesn't matter a whit to the people. They never watch TV - they just channel hop.
But do they read?
If you say no, you are just lying - and you are the proof for it.