The 1 a.m. call that led to a scoop

Bangalore Mirror has been publishing some hard-hitting stories on its front page for some time now. Yesterday it took the police to task for unlawfully keeping a law student in custody (October 23, Page 1) for 16 hours and not even informing his frantic family about his whereabouts.

Today, October 24, it has headlined, with telling photographs, the case of a family traumatised by a drunk BBMP official who went on a rampage at 1 a.m. Of special interest here to media students is the first-person account by the reporter, Manasi Paresh Kumar. Here is the intro:

I WAS JUST TURNING in for the night at around 1.30 when my phone began ringing. Wondering who it could be at that hour, I was taken aback to see it was Dinesh Kumar, the president of the RWA in Panduranganagar. I had met the elderly gentleman a couple of days ago with regard to the story about Vijay Patil’s harassment and demolition orders. Though I was expecting bad news, the fear in Kumar’s voice was unnerving. “Patil has come with a demolition team and vehicles to (Parameshwar) Bhat’s house. He has hit him and is now threatening to go for the house. What do we do?” was his shaky query. Assuring Kumar that I was on my way, I reached the place in just under 15 minutes along with our photojournalist P Muthu.

When you're a reporter you have to be prepared to be rung by your sources at all odd hours. In Manasi's case, the phone call that came as she was about to go to bed gave her a Page One exclusive. Which is more important for her than the fact that she was up all night, as she relates in her first-person account, and only got to return home at 6 a.m.

Read her account in its entirety here: "OUR REPORTER WAS THERE WHEN IT ALL HAPPENED".