Hadley on Valentine's Day
JLord
Posts: 35MI6 Agent
“You think we can just make up stories? The whole point of the news agency business is that we get it right and are seen to get it right. Or else no one would ever use us. Everything is sourced. ”
“So every quote is word for word legit?”
“Of course it is! You obviously don’t know much about news. How long do you think we would be in business if we made up quotes?”
Hadley felt one of his lapses of concentration coming on. He drifted back to his days on the Sotobech Sentinel and a fabricated Women’s Institute report sent to a rival paper about a handicraft afternoon in which the only materials at hand for each member were a cucumber, two onions and lots of aluminium foil.
“Sorry?” Hadley realised Joe was speaking to him in the present. Twenty years later. In a house on the Peak in Hong Kong.
“I said, what about that double happiness Valentine’s Day ****?”
“I’m sorry?”
Hadley racked his brain and resented having to. He had produced sixty lines the day St Valentine’s Day coincided with the Chinese equivalent in the lunar calendar, a couple of years before the handover. He had had to go out to flower shops and find out how much bouquets of roses were selling for, how much a romantic dinner for two would set you back at the Peninsula Hotel. He had to ask people in the street if love could conquer all.
“Does this day have special significance for you, being St Valentine’s Day and the Chinese equivalent?” he had asked one unsuspecting young Chinese couple as they stepped off a tram.
“Ah?”
“Do you think it’s extra romantic, poignant, because of the two days being on the same day?”
“Ah?”
A few hours later he was banging out his story. “Love is a many splendored thing, or so the saying goes, and St Valentine’s Day meant double happiness for Hong Kong’s young and restless on Tuesday as East met West in an alignment of the stars.”
Ah?
“Well, what about it?” Hadley asked.
“Did you think that was a good story?”
“No, it was a piece of rubbish. But it was a harmless piece of rubbish. No one was expecting an in-depth survey. No one’s credibility was at stake. Certainly not mine. It was a fun story about young lovers!”
“What do you know about young lovers?”
“It was an extended caption to go with a picture. We call them slice-of-life stories. Stand-alone stories to accompany a picture. This wasn’t the Nuremburg trials.”
“Well I want to put your idiot friend Chris Torment on some kind of trial.”
“I am not going to manufacture stories.”
“So write what you see. I know how you feel about Torment. Don’t try to pretend to me that there is such a thing as an objectively written story. Boy, I know more about your business than you do.”
“So every quote is word for word legit?”
“Of course it is! You obviously don’t know much about news. How long do you think we would be in business if we made up quotes?”
Hadley felt one of his lapses of concentration coming on. He drifted back to his days on the Sotobech Sentinel and a fabricated Women’s Institute report sent to a rival paper about a handicraft afternoon in which the only materials at hand for each member were a cucumber, two onions and lots of aluminium foil.
“Sorry?” Hadley realised Joe was speaking to him in the present. Twenty years later. In a house on the Peak in Hong Kong.
“I said, what about that double happiness Valentine’s Day ****?”
“I’m sorry?”
Hadley racked his brain and resented having to. He had produced sixty lines the day St Valentine’s Day coincided with the Chinese equivalent in the lunar calendar, a couple of years before the handover. He had had to go out to flower shops and find out how much bouquets of roses were selling for, how much a romantic dinner for two would set you back at the Peninsula Hotel. He had to ask people in the street if love could conquer all.
“Does this day have special significance for you, being St Valentine’s Day and the Chinese equivalent?” he had asked one unsuspecting young Chinese couple as they stepped off a tram.
“Ah?”
“Do you think it’s extra romantic, poignant, because of the two days being on the same day?”
“Ah?”
A few hours later he was banging out his story. “Love is a many splendored thing, or so the saying goes, and St Valentine’s Day meant double happiness for Hong Kong’s young and restless on Tuesday as East met West in an alignment of the stars.”
Ah?
“Well, what about it?” Hadley asked.
“Did you think that was a good story?”
“No, it was a piece of rubbish. But it was a harmless piece of rubbish. No one was expecting an in-depth survey. No one’s credibility was at stake. Certainly not mine. It was a fun story about young lovers!”
“What do you know about young lovers?”
“It was an extended caption to go with a picture. We call them slice-of-life stories. Stand-alone stories to accompany a picture. This wasn’t the Nuremburg trials.”
“Well I want to put your idiot friend Chris Torment on some kind of trial.”
“I am not going to manufacture stories.”
“So write what you see. I know how you feel about Torment. Don’t try to pretend to me that there is such a thing as an objectively written story. Boy, I know more about your business than you do.”