'Stocks dive on concerns over surging oil, inflation'
SCMP headline, June 11
Let me tell you something about the way this newspaper works. Late every afternoon there is a news conference at which the most important question is what will go on the front page the next day and how big it will be played.
All the departments send someone to attend and, if the business section has an attention-grabbing story, it can happen that this will be taken for the front page and the business editors will have to scramble for something else to put on the front page of this section.
I normally write my column in haunts such as the Foreign Correspondents' Club, but I happened to drop by the newsroom on Tuesday afternoon. I do this occasionally to make sure the receptionist doesn't immediately kick me out, call security or ask me to wear a visitor badge.
The first thing I did was look for the busiest person on the business desk, the one who invariably wears a look that says he or she wants to throw a phone book at a junior reporter. There is always someone who looks that way, the one who has no time for me and whom I therefore choose to plague.