A reporter's medium

Trouble with the journalist is that he is allowed a very narrow aperture on a petty transit point through a high shutter speed - and he likes to believe that he sees the whole landscape. There would be nothing wrong with this, except that the journalist wants us to share his tunnel vision and take it as a a revelation of the cosmic grandeur. A journalist is esssentially a microscopist with no concern or time for the total picture. Those who love to confuse a "vigenette" with vision should join the profession. They will go far

Total vision always defies reporting: it is more to do with understanding while reporting is and should be confined to "narration" of things without an opinionated sequencing imposed on it. A reporter's job is simply that of a photographer -- see a "spot" and report it as honestly as the camera does, without pretending to "educate" the viewer or the reader. The trouble however is a journalist can not be happy with a work in which his moral arrogance has no place, or one in which he is not allowed the luxury of talking as if he were the conscience of the race. He wants to grab the role that actually belongs to a saint, a poet, an artist or a philospher - and he wants to do so without having to undergo any of the rigours involved in saintlihood, poetry, art or philosophy. A journalist would be a great professional if he perfects the art of his job first -- which is merely to report. For this, he has to remove his massive presence off the page. But it is a sad day for journalism when by-line out-weighs the "story."