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	three lines at a time


	“Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.” Charles Lamb, 1833 “Frankly, despite my horror of the press, I’d love to rise from the grave every ten years or so and go buy a few newspapers.” Luis Buñuel, Spanish filmmaker “I often wonder what future historians will say about us. One sentence will suffice to describe modern man: he fornicated and he read newspapers.” Albert Camus, French novelist, dramatist, philosopher, 1956

Three lines at a time

I was almost apologetic when I put up this site, and the introductory piece on the homepage almost reflected these feelings. When I told friends that I will be soon discarding the homepage piece and instead write a new one every few days, they were aghast at the idea that I will be trashing the old pieces. “You see, these are the days of Three Lines At A Time journalism,” I said, trying to argue in favour of discarding the homepage introductions every few days. Of course, no one understood the TLAAT phrase since it was an in-house description of journalism within the core group of my friends.

Perplexed, they wanted to know the story.

A very dear friend and fellow journalist, not emitting Pulitzer rays but certainly doing better than 'MC distributes chlorine tablets' journalism, had left the print media world some years back and joined a news channel.

During a visit to Delhi, I saw her in action, trying to get the `lines' straight. Last time I had witnessed people trying to get the `line' straight was when young students with pretensions to become committed communists would wait for the next party line from a Randive or a Joshi. Anyway, after a few takes, her cameraman had the solution. "Please take it three lines at a time!" She did, from a mugged-up script, and voila! Got it right.

I get it. Those who can't untangle the knots that life presents to you in all its glory now have a choice -- they can all take the Three Lines at a Time approach. Fill it, spout it, forget it. For the rest, life in the fast lane of journalism has more than three lines at a time. Get the line? It is okay to be ignorant in some areas, but prey! Why abuse the privilege?

In lieu of ‘Take It Three Lines At A Time’ Journalism
Winter 2006
In this increasingly beautiful and simple world, journalism is adding its own mite to make it and itself simpler and more

Bismarck, SP Singh & Personal Websites
Summer 2006
Bismarck once said that God looks after fools, drunks, children, and the U.S.A. I am not in the U.S.A., I do not drink, and haven’t been mistaken as a child for many...

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