Shattered! How I Chased A News Story And Missed It
Here's a little story - a parable, if you like - which should serve as a warning to all eager young journalists. Let me cut to the chase.
The other morning I found myself at Stirling railway station. I was running along the platform at a speed guaranteed to spread fear and alarm among the waiting passengers. My face was bright red and my jacket was flapping in the wind like a loose mainsail on the Cutty Sark. I wasn't even trying to catch a train. I was, rather, trying to get in front of the train so that I could take a photograph of the shattered windscreen. The windscreen had been smashed by vandals the night before and I had been informed of this fact after boarding at Inverness.
"Apologies to passengers, " the guard had told us, "but anyone heading for King's Cross will have to change trains at Edinburgh. That's because the windscreen was damaged last night by vandals."
See, told you so.
I thought about this annoucement and it began to irk me. Why was it, I wondered, that the train was deemed safe to travel from Inverness to Edinbugh, but not safe to take people south of there to London? I imagined the driver peering through the cracked glass trying to make out the stations at Aviemore and Perth. Suppose a cow wandered on to the line. Might not the driver mistake it for a walking jigsaw puzzle? It sounded, to me, like a possible news story...if only I could get a photograph of the damage.
Regular blog readers will be aware that I carry my camera at all times. Also, I was due to change trains at Stirling en route to Glasgow. The trouble was, I was carrying my bulky laptop bag and trundling my wheely suitcase. Now we all know we're not allowed to leave luggage unattended on the platform, so how could I get to the front of the train in time to take the snap? I could have made my way through five carriages but that felt like an obstacle course of sliding doors and wandering infants.
As luck would have it, just as the train neared Stirling, I met a colleague from Inverness who had obviously been hiding from me until that point. Probably in an overhead luggage rack. As I stepped off the train I asked her to watch my bags and then I began my terrorising sprint up the platform. I got to the front of the train. I took a photograph and then another and then...and then I realised that the window was perfectly intact.
Perplexed, I sauntered back towards my colleague, tucking my shirt back into my trousers and ignoring the weird glances from people around me.
"Strange, " I said, "I couldn't see any damage."
"I know why, " said my colleague, "it's probably the windscreen on the back of the train that's been smashed. They'll be pulling that engine unit to Edinburgh just to be safe."
She was right. Just then the train whizzed past and sure enough there was the shattered windscreen at the rear.
And did I have my camera ready? Was there even a story? No and no again.
So what is the moral of this tale? What lesson does it offer to young journalists?
Well, it's always worth chasing the story but sometimes you have to accept that it simply doesn't exist.
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