It takes quite a bit to get us battle-hardened editorial writers worried, but we are afraid that moment has come. With the Supreme Court decreeing that only those reporters with a law degree and seven years of covering court proceedings can get accreditation, we fear the floodgates will be opened.
Those covering the health beat may well be required to have at least a first degree in medicine which may then be fine-tuned to different specialisations. Or perhaps business journalists will have to come into the profession armed with an MBA.
Now you will wonder why we are so rattled.
If truth be told, we editorial writers are given to covering a host of issues.
On a good day, it may be Anna's antics, on another the fate of the BJP under Nitin Gadkari, the fortunes of the Congress after Sonia Gandhi's illness, whether Manmohan Singh has ever broken into a guffaw in his life and when, if ever we will understand fully the import of Pranab Mukherjee's rosogolla-accented words.
Will we be asked to acquire several degrees all at once? We wonder what degree we could get to write the more humorous editorials. Is there a Birbal school of humour?
{{/usCountry}}Will we be asked to acquire several degrees all at once? We wonder what degree we could get to write the more humorous editorials. Is there a Birbal school of humour?
{{/usCountry}}To take things further, perhaps one fine day, our elected representatives will also be required to specialise. So, we cannot have a lawyer like Kapil Sibal presiding over HRD or tele-communication.
We are also worried about how we will print our calling cards once we have gained suitable expertise in all the issues we write about. We might need a scroll to attach all our degrees ranging from LLB to MBBS to MBA just to mention a few that are on our radar.
So, if you notice a drop in quality of our editorials, don't blame us, we are burning the midnight oil trying to notch up all the degrees we need. Yes, these are testing times for us.