Journalist fools journalist

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)