BEHIND EVERY SCOOP

Very often in my conversations with those intending to pursue a career in journalism, the inevitable question arises: How does one in a small society find sufficient stories that are of interest to the public?
My response has always been that behind every breaking event, there are many stories of human interest which can be found, and which ought to be pursued by our journalists. The challenge is for our feature writers to pursue these angles and find the human interest stories behind every scoop.
Take for example the tragic incident of the child who died after an alleged exorcism. The story of the death of the child has been extensively pursued in the media. Even the funeral of the child was covered. However, what about the practice of exorcism? How widespread is it in Guyana? And should the Ministry of Health not issue an advisory to the public to avoid such things. The Ministry has to safeguard the interest of the public and therefore its views on this practice would be most helpful to the public, even if it is controversial and attracts the ire of those who claim to be experts in demon possession.
The public would sure be interested in what these experts would have to say in response to what the public authorities would say. And so arising from this single but tragic incident we can have a number of side stories or human interest.
A few days ago, there were bombings of the subway in Russia. This made international headlines since in the first set of bombings some thirty-eight persons died.
Just after, and perhaps purely by coincidence, there was a documentary shown on television about the building of a section of the subway system in Russia, something that took sixteen years to complete. It shows the importance of forward planning, something that our own planners need to consider.
The television documentary detailed the engineering challenges and the feats achieved during the construction of the section of the subway. It was quite interesting even for someone who may not be that knowledgeable in such technical details. So that now when one recalls last week’s tragic incidents in Russia, there is a better understanding of why the system was able to withstand the bomb blasts of last week.
Guyana is never going to have a subway system. Both our population and economy are too small to afford the massive costs involved in such an enterprise. But this does not mean that the public may not be interested in the engineering designs of many of our public works projects.
Take for example, the construction of the drying floors for rice which were recently done. We are told in the media that one such floor in Essequibo cost some 14 million dollars. This was a news item in our media. It was carried as a developmental story.
But what about the other human interest stories that can emerge from this very important piece of infrastructure? What about the construction design of these floors?
Fourteen million dollars is quite a staggering sum of money to spend on a floor and therefore the public is going to be interested in knowing how large was the drying floor, what are its special features that would lead to greater efficiency, whether steel was used in the construction of the floor, how thick was the foundation and the floor itself and other details which would allow for a justification of the price.
Then there is question as to how many farmers are going to benefit from this floor, whether they will have to pay any fees for drying their paddy and the economics of the whole scheme. Also what happens during that period when rice is being grown? Is there an alternative plan to convert the tarmacs of the drying floors to a farmers’ market as is being touted for the plot of land?
There was also an interesting development this week in local cricket. A special clinic was held at the National Stadium for our senior cricketers. It was done under the guidance of the national coach. He was assisted by someone who has been described as a high performance analyst.
Now it is important, I believe, for local and regional cricket to enter the scientific age and for our players to be exposed to experts that can help them. It was however unfortunate that the media did not take the opportunity to give us a biographic sketch of this high performance analyst such as where he has worked before, his technical qualifications and the success stories that have emerged from his work with other players. It would also be interesting to have learnt in more detail just what the work of a high performance analyst involves. These are all stories that can emerge from a single original story and shows the importance that journalists in Guyana should pay to following up on stories which they may have felt were stale news.
We are a small society and therefore there is not always breaking news. However, there is still a great deal of angles in the existing scoops that would satisfy the appetite of the reading public and provide countless human interest stories.