Some time ago, a Vasco-based couple died in a road mishap in Porvorim and the correspondent promptly sent in the report. The next morning, I was taken aback to find the item in a single column, virtually hidden in the section for continued items on Page 4. Incidentally, the distribution of saplings by an MLA not only merited a double-column spread, but also a decent photograph -- ironically, just alongside the news item reporting the tragic deaths. The sub-editor's reply, like his news sense, left me baffled. "So what? So many people die almost everyday. What was so special about these deaths?" Unfortunately, the sub-editor failed to acknowledge the fact that the same news item was prominently displayed in the other two English-language newspapers. A former colleague once aptly described such an attitude as "'news sense' value which gets transformed into 'nuisance value'." In most cases, those serving on the news desk in English-language papers have never worked as rural correspondents and are, hence, unable, or in some cases unwilling, to understand the intricacies of collecting and sending news items. Confined to the four walls of the newspaper office, some members of the news desk play a role similar to that of a cook in the kitchen; while rural correspondents are the waiters who have to constantly interact either with an unhappy customer or, in some cases, a satisfied customer. The news desk essentially plays a vital role in the making or breaking of a story sent by rural correspondents. But then, the news desk is faced with pressures of a different kind, which are not always understood by rural correspondents, based as they are in remote corners of Goa, who rarely witnessed the hectic activity at the news desk, moments before the deadline. On numerous occasions, news items placed on the page had to be removed at the last moment to accommodate late advertisements. As such, rural reports, no matter how essential, simply couldn't find the space in newspaper. Moreover, many correspondents are convinced that their news items are more important than the others, so much so that they cannot bear to find their reports delayed even by a day. Quite often, their unhappiness over the delay in printing their reports would become more vocal with each passing day and, invariably, I became their punching bag. This was largely because some of the rural correspondents are considered important members of the public in their locality and, at times, their prestige and financial gains in journalism would often be at stake with a delayed publication of their reports.