Tapu Misa N.Z. Herald

Tu Tangata, Issue 9, 1 December 1982, Page 21

Tapu Misa N.Z. Herald

I used to go home after work and worry about stories I’d written. Then I’d go to bed and have nightmares about them. In the morning I’d invent elaborate ways of reading the paper without actually having to read my own stories, which was not easy considering I never knew which page to avoid. I decided after a while that this was pathetic. And after ten months of this reporting thing, I think I’ve got over it.

Now I just don’t read the paper. Things are in perspective now. I’ve discovered few people read the paper as intently as we in the news room pretend to. People pay more attention to their cornflakes. Unless of course your goof is so glaring they couldn’t help/wait to ring you up to tell you about it. That doesn’t happen often but I live in paranoia.

I came to the Herald at the start of this year after Wellington Polytech had not quite prepared me. It was fun and games at first because I couldn’t drive, (some would say I still can’t), and I found the layout of Auckland (and the people) a complete mystery (still do). But once I’d lost myself in the place a few times, had assignments in places I’d never even known existed and been to a few local councils, it all became... less mysterious. Why I got into this is very simple. I was suffering from advanced atrophy/apathy of the system at my job in Maori Affairs; I was too lazy and terrified of the thought of seven or eight years of being penniless to go to varsity

and do a law degree; and I haven’t got the muscles for hard labour. The only palatable (and I thought exciting and glamourous??!) option was Journalism. Yes, we 11... Somedays here assignments are so thin on the ground (we have about 40 journos in the room here) and it takes you all day to scratch around for stories, dutifully ring contacts, and an-

noy them or follow ideas which after ten phone calls come to nothing. Other times all the cursed assignments come at once, it takes 14 goes before you can find an intro that is even reasonable (which invariably turns out to be the first one you wrote anyway), the chief reporter is hanging over you wondering why the hell it takes you so long to finish something so straight forward, so simple a 12 year old could do it (and in half the time) and suddenly it’s your contacts turn to ring up and bother you for a change (usually when you’re busy writing stories and you’ve no time to listen, let alone manage another story). Those are the good days...