Ten Commandments of the God of News

Last year in Iraq, I spent most of my embeds with Stephen Farrell, NYT Baghdad correspondent. Terrific Irish 'bloke'. When on a story he never stops, and before he finishes it, he is already thinking about the next one. This are his ten commandments he stick to, religiously:

1. Thou shalt worship no other gods before me, especially the gods of Features and Opinion. Which are lesser deities.

2. Thou shalt not take life, or have one.

3.For seven days shalt thou labour, then shalt thou interrupt thy holiday.

4. If you go, you get.

5. A good splash is better than a good shag. (some worshipper resistance to this one)

6. When thy news editor sayeth ‘Go forth for two weeks’, it shall mean three months.

7. Thy partners shall come and go. But mainly they go.

8. When thy newsdesk demandeth ‘Where is thy story, the hour approacheth the line of the dead?’ Thou shalt express great lamentations, blame thy internet server, and offer to send it 'again' immediately.

9. Every war correspondent scorneth the journalist 100 yards closer to the bullets as a ‘nutter’ and the one 100 yards behind as a ‘pussy’. Invariably s/he alone gotteth it just right.

10. Thou shalt not bore thy colleagues with great warzone anecdotes of yesteryear, for verily everyone stopped listening after “…no, sorry, it was 1987.”

11. Send more money.