Text: Days Like These

Text

The newsroom’s not a fun place to be today.
Uneasy mix: adrenaline, efficiency, cheerlessness.
We’re safe, air-conditioned - tea or coffee anyone?
Planning our coverage of the blood in the streets.

We joke about the journalist’s cold-blooded craft,
But today it’s no laugh, the headlines scream:
Massacre in Mumbai, city under siege.
Horrified, I skim the article, late for a meeting.

Our daily conference call, the state’s editors comparing stories,
And the terror is grimly broken down into workable chunks.
No-one likes days like these, but we're all in it together,
so we set our jaws and divide: sound bite, resource, cost.

“Our midday phoner – he was hiding under his bed -
has been released, so we’ve got him for the 7 o’clock.”
(He is free, thank you God, to talk to us, to hug his children)

“We’ve interviewing the parents of a missing girl, crew back by 1700”
(if I was her mum, how could I face the camera?
And then again, how could I not?)

“We’ll start the story with the death toll thus far”
(images in my mind from the pics we can’t show you –
I blink and push them away)

I yank myself back to the here and now – concentrate, you! Be practical!
Keep an eye on that interview… if she cries, it’s my job
To let someone know (“I’ve got 10 secs of tears!")
I feel a bit sick, it’s a kind of betrayal, I’m sorry, I truly am.

Mrs Mum, husband by your side, worried eyes, wringing hands,
I watch your interview, all functional duplicity:
Half: jotting timecodes, frame accurate, double checked.
Half: heart bleeding, praying for an end to your wait.

I used to worry on days like these, that you’d see my almost-tears,
That I’d lose your respect, and you’d snigger,
your diamond-hard heart a tiny rock in your chest.
I felt alone, sensitive and small, waiting to calcify like a proper grown-up.

But the years have passed, and I know these days,
And I know all of you feel it too, all around me.
I see it, barely hidden, in the set of your jaw, downcast eyes,
I can hear it – low, sombre tones of the chief ed’s brief.

We are locked by our profession in the roles we must play,
But we each own our compassion, and hold it close.
We’re not the monsters I thought we were.
We are here, bringing you the story, holding our breath.