The eye for details and the nose for news. Is that enough?

I was told that should be enough.

I was no Rudolph red-nosed deer-journalist, but still I was trying to get some sniffing around the stories. Sometimes, I was drawn by the smell of a humbug. Naive I came back in the newsroom with this line: ‘You won’t believe what a story I have. Do you know that man that used to be a mayor and now has camels and…’. STOP! Yes, we know him. Everyone does. He’s a sham’, my news chief-editor used to cut my wings off. She was a very determined woman, with the eyes of an eagle for news and treated my short-sightedness in one year.

My nose for news was frontally punched repeatedly with diagnosis of blonde-headed reporter, wailings in the bathrooms (toilets would tell the best stories about girls becoming women and students becoming reporters) and a few kicks in the ass.

At this point I was able to come back in the newsroom with the right story of a street to be opened and NEVER forget to ask how is it going to be named. It might! had happened to me. The nose for news? Checked!

The eye for details?! Well, that’s another story.The fact that you see the small stains on the tablecloth, apparently unnoticeable, isn’t the test. The test is when your chief editor is asking you: ‘Did you see the documents on the mayor’s desk? Have you noticed the stamp?’… well, not. It had just a nice colour. As in ‘burgundy’.

Well, this is probably the point when your editor is going to black out. Black should be one of your eye-colour too. A punch would save you the shame. And the screaming. This is how my visual memory started working like a camera. The eye for details? Checked.

Enough by now?! NOT!

Unless you know coding, graphics, doing timelines, maybe some animation would help, filming, editing, tweeting, pitching and the list is still opened to the public and technology.

So, the nose for news and the eyes for details are nothing if not wrapped in the right-fashionable clothes of the new media trend. We’re going mobile (50% of Metro readers are using mobile app) and television isn’t anymore the main threat. It’s the second device used in the world. Have a look at this link.

A challenge to all our senses, nose and eyes, a fusion fritata in media that at this point seems like a receipe I can’t cook. But I’ll try until I get fried.

Thank God, that from time to time, you get to meet some old-fashioned Victorian street-artist next to Trafalgar Square who tells you stories about the magic carpet made out of ad-hoc written poems. Arjun, my colleague is gonna produce the documentary on this Joseph who spent his last 15 years in the street, writing lyrics for broken-hearted girls, for dreamers and pessimists, for his wife or for some goofy tourists.

‘Wondering eyes’ is for me and it pretty says everything. I am now training again!, my eyes for the stories. Multimedia stories. Meanwhile, I am still wondering and wandering.

N.B. Tuba, thanks for the pics! Arjun, can’t wait to see your blogpost and documentary!