No English No Tapes, No Report

I have written on this blog many times that I have almost missed my slot on the news because the editors wouldn't edit my package early enough and because Dhivehi speaking reporters forget to ingest the English interview clip into the editing computer.

It finally happened yesterday when I was covering what is very possibly the most important story I have or will cover here. The editing machines crashed because they were too full which meant that the editors barely got the 8:00 show on. It wasn't until 8:20 that I was even able to begin editing my piece. The ingestion problems also reached a new low, whoever ingested the interviews didn't ingest the EEnglish and then lost the tapes. so I spent practically the whole time looking for them. I was finally about to locate only two of the four that were supposed to go in my stand up. Even working fast, by the time the package was edited the 9:00 English news was practically over.

This is going to happen again unless there are some changes. There needs to be a newsroom policy that who ever ingests the video will ingest the English. In general their needs to be more accountability at TVM. Passing the buck seems to be a favorite passtime there. No one would admit to losing the tapes last night. I haven't aired a story in the past two days because of this problem, but I have learned something about different cultures with different work ethics.

Another example: on Wednesday I was going to do a VO/SOT on accusations of corruption in the chamber of commerce. However, the story didn't air because we couldn't get a response from the accused. Why? Because the person who was doing the story with me promised to call them, but told some one else to do it and then both of them went for a snack! I personally couldn't make the call as when I try they hang up on me when they hear me speaking English. However, from the Maldivian point of view this is just the normal way of doing business.