The 18th of October, 2007. The newsroom is a great place to work. Information in itself is a huge rush, and once you’re addicted, you can never go back. Not without considerable withdrawal that is.
But it’s true, there can be too much of a good thing.
It was an unusually crowded Thursday night at the newsroom. Our boss had already told us to prepare for a marathon shift. We’d come to the office that morning, just as she was about to board her plane to Karachi. And we would be staying till she got to Jinnah’s mausoleum, and then some.
After a grueling 12 hours on my desk, I got up for a cup of tea shortly after 11. Looking relieved that nothing had happened so far, my boss (another hardcore, albeit closet PPP loyalist) joined me. We sat and joked about the sea of humanity that lined Karachi’s longest thoroughfare and how long the journey might take still. I dreaded the prospect of spending another night on the sixth floor, but since he’s the boss, we all play along.
It couldn’t have been midnight yet when our senior producer burst through the coffee room door. “Two explosions in Benazir’s caravan,” said Farhan. Always the consummate journalist, the reporter in Farhan shone through. He didn’t say ‘bomb’, ‘suicide bombing’ or ‘blast’ – words any layman would’ve used in his first telling of the story.
The colour drained from my boss’ face. We all ran for the door, and leapt into the newsroom seconds later. After that, the night was a blur.
Taha, the business correspondent, was dispatched to the hospital where corpses were pouring in by the car load. Mobin, the stock market boy, was flicking through news channels, writing down any piece of new information he could lay his hands on. Zarrar and Razeshteh, the anchors, stayed live for hours after that. Sohail, one of our cameraman, had been right there when the bomb went off. He’d just lost a good friend in the blast, a photojournalist for the ARY network. But in he rushed, panting, heaving and screaming for any word of Sabin, the reporter he had been assigned to – and only relinquished his tapes after he was told that she was fine and out of harm’s way.
It’s amazing how the human mind works. When it has no visual aid, it spirals out of control. If the news is horrific, the most terrible and macabre scenes will play themselves out in your head. But when you can put a face to a scream and see the blood on asphalt, it’s a whole new ballgame altogether.
Sohail’s tapes were amazing. Horrifying, but amazing. His footage of the blast site, the blackened truck that Benazir was on, and the pictures of party leaders, and even BB herself, being taken off the truck and whisked away were the best that anyone had. In a matter of minutes, the footage was cut and delivered to Geo News. And there, for the first time in eight months, the words ‘Geo English Exclusive’ found their way onto television screens worldwide. Later that night, we watched as CNN ran the footage, with the text very visible, again and again and again.
But back to the newsroom. I think the Americans have a word for times like these. They call them ‘moments of truth’. But in Pakistan, we call them ‘weekdays’. Insensitive you say? Try sitting through an editorial meeting, where you’re told that a story on election symbols should be given precedence over the deaths of hundreds in Iraq or Waziristan or Swat. It’s a cruel business. Actually, it’s a cruel world.
So there we were. Naveed, imported specially from Islamabad for Benazir’s return, had been right next to the caravan when the bombs went off. We’d had him on the phone for nearly three hours by now. But when he walked into the newsroom at around 4 in the morning, bloodstained clothes and all, the picture changed completely. Anchors who’d been moaning about going live now returned with renewed vigour, willing to man that desk for another 12 hours. And as Naveed walked to the news desk for the first studio discussion of the night, none of us blinked.
Not a lot of good came of what happened that night. Taha still has nightmare visions of what he saw at the hospital that night. And most others are no better either. It had been the single bloodiest night in Karachi’s history.
But at least she was safe.
