Journalist fools journalist

JAKARTA (JP): "Foreign journalists are here (in the city) like they are watching a rumbling volcano that may erupt any time soon," said a local reporter working as a stringer for an American news agency.

The stringer, who claimed to have been in journalism for more than 10 years, said he was amused every time he observed the way foreign journalists viewed local affairs.

Last Friday he bumped into a Philippine photographer who was excited after taking shots of armored vehicles and security officers deployed inside the People's Consultative Assembly compound.

"This guy had a bunch of cameras hanging round his neck. He was excited to tell me he had taken shots about 'tension' around the complex," he said.

"Then I told him to rush to Chinatown where tension was already high and troops had just been brought in to quell unrest," he said, bursting into laughter.

"You can imagine how stressful it must have been to get to the downtown area in the rush hour only to realize he had been fooled." (pan)