A reader's letter was published in Herald a few days later: "Where was your reporter when the firing took place in Vasco? Had he gone to Baina for a quickie?" The Editor's reply: "We don't enjoy the patronage of Chief Minister Pratapsing Raoji Rane. So we missed the news." (As if Rane had called in the NT and given out the news!) Rajan Narayan is essentially a rhetorician. He has a way with words and can argue his case convincingly. But his writings carried little conviction, which was the major reason for Herald's credibility crisis in those days. But the fact that he changed the media scene there cannot be disputed. In my view, the fundamental error he made was to plunge into the middle of things, rather than remaining a level-headed observer that a good journalist is supposed to be. He made an over-zealous effort to ingratiate himself with a section of the Goan society and failed miserably. The fact that even today his Goan credentials are questioned bears this out. As everything has two sides, the Herald experiment (if one could call it that) too had its pros and cons. The single most significant achievement of Herald, in my opinion, was to raise a breed of bright young journalists who cut their teeth in journalism there. Most of them left disillusioned and bitter with the paper and its Editor, but they have done reasonably well elsewhere. But for Herald, they would not have come to this field. And Herald did manage to provide some relief (comic relief, according to critics) from the tedious fare offered by the NT. It was sharp and pungent -- too pungent for many. Almost every report packed a sting in its tail. Some of the fare dished out in the guise of investigative journalism was just gossip laced with outrageous bias. But all this lighted the scene up and served as a reminder to the NT to wake up and take notice. Rajan Narayan never hesitated to name his rivals, especially the NT, while making disparaging remarks. The NT, on the other hand, took a diametrically opposite stance: it skirted controversies altogether. Its unwritten policy was never to report or comment on anything controversial, let alone naming names! But that had to change to keep pace with the changing times. I lampooned Rajan Narayan in my columns occasionally, which Mudaliar permitted reluctantly. It must be said to Rajan Narayan's credit that he not only took my pot-shots in good humour, but, according to Herald sources, also stopped a couple of juniors who wanted to hit back at me.