Gotcha

The journalist sometimes tease me about being Arab. They do this when I get passionate or angry about what they are doing. It's so frustrating.

We've been trying to emphasize the the front page picture must ALWAYS be a fresh, locally shot picture, not something taken, as photos in Algerian newspapers too often are, from the Internet or the archives. So the other day I was hanging out by the photo editor asking, "What does it look like we'll have for today?" We have been pushing them to offer the managing editor a choice of several photos of the best stories of the day, but they are stuck on the idea that the photo, good or bad or even non-existent," must go with whatever the top national story of the day is. This was one of those days, so I was beginning to take off on how this was not good enough.. blah blah. And the editor next to the photo editor goes, "You know we do have a picture for tomorrow. Do you know what it is?"

"What?" I asked.

"It's an American expert..." and I let him get no further before I began moaning, "Oh no, please don't tell me you are planning THAT for the front page, a foreign expert????"

"Yes," he goes,"she is here trying to push freedom of the press..." and again I interrupted with, "That is sooooo boring. We can't keep putting officials on this page. Why would Algerians care about that?"

"And" he goes, "her name is Rose..." I broke in again and then stopped.

"Oh," I said. " I think you got me."

We all had a good laugh and it broke up the tension. But the picture they put on the front page was still lousy.