SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — I got over the helicopter peeing incident after quite some time. It finally died down when I got more and more exclusive stories from the military. I eventually got accepted as a serious journalist, and not just another newbie who can’t hack it.
Within a couple of weeks, I became a regular in that helicopter. I felt confident riding that thing almost every other week for nine months. It was all becoming second nature, and the flights always ran smoothly. But my confidence was shaken a bit when one day, I flew with another journalist who writes for the local paper. He was one of my father’s old mentee and he was so glad to be covering a story with me -— someone who used to run around in their office as a kid while they pulled an all-nighter. He said that when he first started out 10 years ago, they used the same helicopter. In fact, my father mentioned to him that he rode the same helicopter when he was a greenhorn himself (I asked my father about this and he confirmed it) — I think that would make the helicopter over 30 years old. Or worse.
That shook my confidence a bit. Okay, a lot. But I had no choice, I kept on riding it hoping it wouldn’t decide to retire while we were still on air. Needless to say, it didn’t.
That helicopter took me to a lot of places. One of them was on top of a rebel camp that was just captured by the military. They wanted an immediate coverage on the event as it was a big boost to military morale (given how bad the rebels have been kicking their asses). So I went and interviewed people and walked around the camp — doing my job as usual. I wondered why there were banana leaves on the ground but I didn’t touch them in case they were evidence, or undetonated bombs or something. Later on, when we got back to the office, my cameraman told me they were covering the shallow graves of the rebels that were killed. Apparently, their shoes and feet were poking out of the ground and they didn’t want the media to see them. I’m glad they put the leaves there. I really didn’t want to see any more bodies than I need to in my line of work.
The good thing about having a great cameraman is that you never question if he “got the shot”. Plus, he will tell you what he thinks would be the best background for your stand up, or what angle to take, or what drama you need to add to your news story. The “bad” thing about having a great cameraman is he is never off the clock. Never. Even if you are ready to call it a night, if his spider senses tingle, then it’s off to follow a lead.
We were on our way home at 11pm after covering some political event when he spotted a bomb squad in the middle of the road. Traffic was blocked and you can barely see what was going on, but for some reason my cameraman knew. He parked the car, grabbed his camera and screamed at me to grab the microphone and follow him. I was so ready to go to bed already but his scream shot a fresh dose of adrenaline up my system. I did what I was told and ran after him. He turned on the camera and just started shooting whatever was going on, without asking questions. The naí¯ve silly me just followed suit, observing what the group of men in military gear was doing.
When they were done, they headed back to their truck and told me to just call their office for the official story. We headed back to the car and I asked Paps what was going on.
“They thought it was a bomb,” he said.
“Hold on, so they were in the middle of the road to figure out whether it was a bomb or not? So when you ran in there to shoot it, it could have been a bomb?”
“I guess so,” he said.
“What if it was a bomb??!!! What if it was unstable and it exploded??!!”
He fell silent.
“We could’ve been killed! You just ran in there without knowing if it was safe or not!” I screamed.
“Huh, I guess you have a point.”
“There isn’t a company or a job in this world that is worth my life. Think about your daughter Paps. She’ll grow up without a father just because you wanted to shoot a good story,” I said to him.
We drove home in silence. I hoped he was pondering on what I said. But the next day, as we were about to head home again, he spotted a military truck going in the opposite direction, and he did a quick U turn to follow them.
Thankfully it was just a military drill and he quickly took me home. After that incident, I reminded him of his family everytime I think he would do something drastic. I don’t know about other journalists but I really don’t think the company I used to work for deserved my life to be on the line just to push their ratings up.
For a while, we stuck to “safer” stories after that. I dug into the political scene, trying to find explosive stories that wouldn’t kill me. One day we got our hands on an issue that we thought would be a good political story and so we went to the governor’s office for an interview. But the governor refused to comment on the issue, so we went to the vice governor’s office to get his side of the story (they had opposing views on the topic) and he readily gave us a quote we could use. Paps suggested we ignite the flames between the two politicians, so we went back to the governor’s office and told him what the vice governor had said. Inflamed by the vice governor’s comment, the governor gave us a really good quote in response to the vice governor’s quote. After getting that we went back to the vice governor to then get his comment on the governor’s comment. We did this back and forth interview for maybe four times before we were satisfied with what we got. It was a great piece for the news, having both politicians answering each other’s accusations like they were arguing live on air.
I used that tactic several times after that. And sometimes, when a politician would refuse to give a comment, I would bluff that the opposition told us they were happy to give their view on the topic. That usually shakes them enough to give us something for our story.
I never felt guilty about lying to the politicians, or manipulating them to get what I want. I think most of them are crooks who hasn’t done a thing to help their constituents. Plus, I always hated going to their functions. Aside from being crooks, most of them are also very sleazy. They’re not afraid to come on to you even when their wives are in the room. It’s not like you can slap them in public too, so there wasn’t really much of a choice but to smile and excuse myself to avoid their tentacles. There were so many instances when I imagined myself grabbing their balls in an anaconda grip and squeezing until they go pale. Would have made a great footage.
Next stop, the dark side of journalism.
