Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Ooooooohh-kay then... already a sell-out

Wow. Today was not fun. Not at all. I wrote as much as I could within my own conscience and values and ethics... but I'm not sure what is going to make it to print. I have little faith that my softly-softly approach (which would spare the participants in my story some needless shame and derision) will be what goes to print.
I stalked people - not just any people, disadvantaged people - on the street today. I was as nice as possible to them, but I'm afraid I won their trust (and took their photos to print alongside the story) under false pretenses. My brief was basically to find "bludgers", find out why they were not working and then get their photo. Not the easiest thing in the world to achieve in any case. I was on the street for five hours. It was a very long day indeed. And the task was such that quitting went through my mind. I used to do the work that helped these sort of people. Now I was getting all Today Tonight 'on their ass'.
To say I was uncomfortable is an understatement. As I wrote my story, knowing it would be re-written and unrecognisable, I could have cried. Still have a lump in my throat right now, actually.
That's a lump of guilt people. Horrible guilt.
How long does it take someone to sell-out when they go to "Herdsman"?
A bit over a day.
And while I won't be quitting, I think I might try to shuffle myself somewhere with a little bit less... of the above. Like online. Or Arts. Or copy boy.

PS, Kate: If I'm smoking cigars with the officers, then the officers are taking pot-shots at the POWs for kicks.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good lord sweetheart. All I can say is that it was a test. A supreme test. I can only imagine you have passed. I'm reaching for p3 already. Love you

L x

my name is kate said...

Oh mercy - I haven't seen the paper yet so my heart is in my throat for you. At least you've faced the worst of it (hopefully) early on and it's all up from here...

Dave said...

I think today's page 3 article comes off very fairly in regards to the 'bludgers'. It doesn't necessarily portray them in a bad light...