GOMANTAK CRIMES

Goodness gracious... do we have journalists in goa or are we mere robots. We suppose a `sub' worth his salt ought to know when to highlight or play up a news item.
Please look up page A3 of Gomantak Times (June 25) for the page’s seemingly most important story. And what is it?
A story telling about ‘Construction of rumblers at Merces' was highlighted with a back grouund screen and further a red-coloured headline to boost it. This sort of treatment would be considered fine for an off beat story… say e.g. if a chief minister undergoes a nasbandi operation on a dull weekend. (hehe)
Let us assess the reasons why this `sub' could have gotten kicked by this story.
Hmm... perhaps he had a few fried chillies from St Inez, you know we had great weather… rains and all. And all those chillies got his stomach to rumble while he was on his shift…
Or maybe he found this second para in the story very stimulating. "The rumblers will be painted with white thermo plastic flourescent paint for better visibility." (PJ)
Are these guys following the steps of the Herald? Over there, the subs highlight any or every item depending on factors as varied as say… whether some sub had to abstain from love making on that particular day which had turned him off or if Bhonsle’s bhaji had an extra bit of garlic that turned him on.
There are those weird colour, screens, boxes et al, that make the pages more 'colourful' (read gaudy). At times there’s so much colour on the pages, that it leaves the reader’s mind stained with a fuzzy rusty hue.
Like on another day, June 22 to be specific, an item on the (now) pasty Yana Gupta and her antics with bears (not Mallya’s beer-cans, bears… real ones)
She was appearing for a PETA pin-up fighting for the cause of the bears (not beers again dearie… BEARS… no Mallya bearhugs here. She was fighting for the cause of real bears, the one who have hair on them and you get to see in a zoo and sometimes in the wild) appeared on two different pages of GT on the same day. One on a Goa page!! And another on a nation page. Check for yourselves. We at Penpricks could hardly bear it (hehe)… Hence we told you the story.
Our sources have told us that the reporting desk in GT meets every day to discuss stories and ideas. Brilliant. Hey, think its time for having a meeting with the deskies too. And probably discuss the goofups.