Weili the vampire (ok, banshee) slayer.

I was on the phone with a particularly irritating interviewee today. Not only was she largely incoherent, she spent most of the conversation talking AT THIS VOLUME.

She was so loud, I held the phone away from my ear, and my colleague sitting across the partition in the next cubicle could hear every word she was saying. It was actually pretty convenient because I just put the phone down and started writing down what she was saying.

I could understand if she was agitated because I was asking her some pretty sensitive questions, but she had no right to wail like a screaming banshee, whilst ignoring everything I was saying in an attempt to actually get her to speak English.

It didn't help that as the call progressed she got more incoherent and loud, to the extent that I actually decided to end the call lest I lose my hearing. I don't earn enough to pay for a operation to cure hearing loss, and I should really avoid listening to incoherent people because my job requires me to make sense of things.

But this was actually the best part. I sent her an email, and on it I put my full name because it is typical corporate practice to err on the formal side of caution. I spent the next half an hour listening to her call me "Lim Wei".

Let me ask you. Which idiot looks at the name "Lim Wei Li" and goes oh, this person's name is "Lim Wei". That's like looking at a person called "Pang Sai Kit" and calling him "Pang Sai."

Pang sai pang buay chut la pang sai.

ER.

I knew Monday was going to be bad, but I didn't expect it to be this bad. I have never once in my life felt close to cracking at the seams, and this is the one day I have to admit I nearly did.

The day started normally enough, just that I was on hotline duty. For those who do not know what that means, it just means that I man the hotline for news that comes in and if there is anything interesting I report to the editor.

One hour into my shift, I got an email from one of my advertorial clients stating that I'd written the ad in the wrong style for them. They wanted it rewritten. It wasn't really my fault because the brief had been vague.

No problem, except that the deadline was the same evening. Then my editor threw me another story because there were no other interns in office. The other 4 were out on assignment. Okay.

Then my editor asked me to follow up on the story I was investigating from last week, and that became task number 3. Then another client from my 2nd advertorial called in and asked if I could edit the article I did for them and send them the final draft by evening. Task 4. And then photodesk comes over and asks me to file another interview for tomorrow. Task 5.

And mind you, I was still on hotline duty.

There was one point in time when the phone rang, but I was on the line with a hotline caller. I ended that call fast, and transferred to the next call which was my interviewee for my advertorial. Then in comes another call just seconds after that was an interviewee for one of my two articles.

Think that's bad? Then my handphone rings, and it was an interviewee calling about an interview I was setting up for tomorrow. Then the photo editor came over and asked me where's your photo caption? I need it filed now. And my supervising editor turns her head over and asks me "Have you checked all your facts? Can I have this story filed by tonight?"

And of course at the end of this whole cycle, the hotline rings again. And at no point in time can I reject a single one of the calls, because interviewees aren't always free to talk, and hotline news often requires immediate attention. And I still had to keep the presence of mind to continue working on my 4 articles/advertorials even as chaos reigned.

I eventually ended work at 9.30pm. It's 11pm now. My heart is racing, my hands are trembling, and I can still feel the adrenaline.

A reporter is a glorified kaypoh

A reporter is a glorified kaypoh. The chosen one, given the rights and access to put his nose in others' business so the nosey parkers out there can kaypoh other people.

Most of the time when I'm out on assignment I am really wondering why I write the stuff I'm writing. It's not exactly news, it's not exactly public service either, it's more like I'm writing it because I know people around me would read it.

Most people have a mental conception of journalists. When I told a taxi driver I was a journalist, he actually started teaching me how to get callgirls in Geylang. He told me I'd need it to go undercover. For whatever reason I don't know, but I am familiar with the sign language conventions they use now. I guess the uncles looking for girls in Geylang are now called "journalists."

If you think about it, they do the same thing. They recee the place, talk to the subjects, learn more about their lives and go around reporting on what they experienced.

Perhaps being curious is human, but trust humans to turn it into a multi-million dollar industry complete with armies of runners, editors to decide which story kaypohs want, and a production line to churn it out so people can pick it up and read it.

Remember the news values you learnt in school? They are irrelevant. When you're out there, the acid test for news is really simple.

The first test is, "Is this something the wet market stallowner would read before he uses the newspaper to wrap the vegetables?"

The second test is, "If you were to choose between reading this news and the Nanyang Chronicle, would you still pick the news?"

The third test is, "If you were stuck in the toilet with the newspaper and no toilet paper, would you use my article or someone else's to wipe your bottom?"

The last is, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Nah, I'm just joking the last doesn't count. But if you see a chicken crossing the road call me, unless its past 7pm. If that's the case, please DON'T call me. I still have a life.