erald must be
painted with the pictures of Choppy, Rico and Ashley,
who contributed greatly to my development as a
journalist. I can safely include this trio into the
list of the other great people like Devika Sequeira,
Pamela, Derek Almeida about whom I have heard a lot.

I guess, the journalistic calibre of the above
mentioned people and their attitude of being go-getters
rubbed off onto people like me. The excitement of
running after news, rather than waiting for news to
land in the form of press notes or government
hand-outs, is a different ball-game altogether. It was
a question of being there first which I liked most in
Herald. During the police firing incident at Cortalim
on the anti-Meta Strips agitationists, when two or
three people were grievously injured, I know it was we
from Herald who reached the hospital first. I fail to
recollect whether it was Choppy or Ashley with whom I
landed at Goa Medical College where the injured were brought.

Although the photographer had gone missing during this
crucial hour, we were nevertheless armed with our
dictaphones to record the first hand accounts of how
the police firing started in Cortalim. We managed to
elicit the names of injured, right from the horse's
mouth so to speak, got reactions of the people who
accompanied the injured and were back in the office in
front of our computers.

Even as the day's incidents took shape in the form of a
lead story for the edition, our faces were somber and
anger welled up in us as we could not forget the gory
images of the body parts of one injured youth. He was
shot through his genitals. But we were journalists and
were supposed to objective in our reports. That was
Herald, getting it right the first time and all the time.

In a sentence, I stitched my cloak and bought my
dagger, from Herald.

Chapter 11:
In black & white... newsdesk nuggets

Derek Almeida

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Derek Almeida, besides being one of Goa's finest and most
aesthetically-balanced deskmen, steals time to write humour columns whenever
possible. This product of Goan journalism has won the respect of his juniors
by his honesty at work, his ability to stand by his subordinates, as well as
his considerable if under-appreciated talent. Memorable headings like
'Sirsat elected, Tomazinho selected' (after a controversial election to the
Goa Speaker's post) are credited to Derek, as every se