Chapter 20 A Race against Time

  “I’m sorry for keeping all the producers and supervisors waiting but the film’s here.”

Se Cai announced in between breath as he tossed the hard disc over to the editor.

“You’ve impressed me again, young man. You have the film ready so fast, I remember I had to use 3 full hours to get a film finish encoding on the line encoder.”

Initially Station Manager Wei had reservations about systemizing Se Cai but his working ethnics, standard and speed that day had flipped those reservations around.

Where else can one find a reporter that is not only willing to do anything for a good piece of news but also write a good script and on top of all that, work fast?

County S Tv Station didn’t have a ranking system among its employee or else Se Cai would easily have been the chief reporter.

“Let’s skip all the other films and focus on this suicide news!”

Manager Wei coughed and ordered seriously.

It was evident that he had been waiting for this. All the other authority figures lined up in a row behind him as they slotted the film into the player.

It takes a village to raise a child but it also took a whole tv station to perfect a good news.

“This shot is too blurry, swap it for another cut!”

“This cut can be shorter, don’t drag the tension out.”

Manager Wei fired off his comments instantly. This proved that he had not isolated himself after his promotion. He had always participated in the station’s everyday news reporting.

The attendant editor that day was Editor Zao. She was originally a reporter but was transferred to the editorial team half a year ago due to her pregnancy. Normally, she was given special treatment due to her pregnancy but that day, she carried her swollen body around in between tasks with labored breath. How she wished her baby would pop right out to give her an extra pair of hands.

Se Cai sneaked a peer at the clock. It was 5.45 pm.

<Focus Tonight>’s broadcast started at 6 pm. In other words, they had only 15 minutes left until broadcast.

Thankfully, most of County S Tv Station’s program was prerecorded. Xin Yu had done the reporting in her studio, if not it would be impossible to achieve the deadline.

“Xiao Zao, I feel sorry for putting such pressure on you while you’re in such condition but understand that many people are sitting in front of their tv sets waiting for this news.”

Manager Wei continued sincerely, “As the media, it’s not only our responsibility to disseminate the news but also to be a trustworthy source of information. Today’s suicide incident has already created multiple online versions. There was even one about it being a terrorist attack. It is thus our responsibility to correct wayward public impression and present them with credible news.”

 He then added, “But due to time constraint, we’ll use tape broadcast to save time.”

County S Tv Station had 2 broadcasting systems. One was the newer digital broadcast which was introduced last year. This system was more stable and easier to manage. One needed to upload the news files into the broadcasting server and go from there. Tape broadcast on the other hand was more traditional. Its weakness was its instability. The tapes tend to lag and drag. Since the introduction of digital broadcast, it had been relegated to a backup plan.

Its only saving grace was its simplicity. After the tapes were inserted into the system player, they would start playing. There was no fuss.

In a time crunch like this, it served its unique purpose.

“Sai Wu? Is that what it said?”

Halfway through the tape, Deputy Station Manager Xu Jing Song asked.  He asked the editor to roll the tape back to allow him to double-check it against the written script.

This Xu Jing Song was also Xu Ran’s father. He normally handled the advertising department, if not for Xu Ran’s relations to that particular news, he wouldn’t even be there.

Xin Yu offered quickly, “Manager Xu, I’ve checked the dictionary, it does have an alternative pronunciation.”

During the final tape review, County S Tv Station would have the anchor there so if there was any mistakes, changes could be made quickly.

“But… Sai is such an awkward pronunciation. Even the Province Station read it as Xie.”

Xu Jing Song grumbled with a frown, afraid to criticize Xin Yu directly.

“It’s me who asked her to pronounce it like that.”

Se Cai quickly stood up and said.

It was after all his advice that Xin Yu went with. He couldn’t just leave her hanging like that.

“Are you joking? Why would you do that? Xiao Se, didn’t Director Bai asked you to supervise Xiao Zhang? You not only didn’t do that but persuade her to commit such an obvious mistake. Do you purposely want to bring Commissioner Xie’s wrath to our tv station? Get your butts out there and fix this immediately!”

Se Cai was an easier target so Xu Jing Song upbraided him sternly.

“But Manager Xu, that is the correct pronunciation.”

Se Cai argued with a hint of challenge in his voice. He was exasperated at Xu Jing Song’s obvious partial treatment.

Xu Jing Song smiled slyly as if Se Cai had walked into his trap, “I’ve seen province news’ report on Xie Wu before. They all call him Xie Wu and not Sai Wu. You know that this is a piece of news that might end up at the central news station. Are you willing to bear the responsibility when the higher-ups start asking question?”

Se Cai shivered with anger. He knew mispronouncing a government official’s name could be either a non-issue or a suicidal career move depending on the scope of the news. If the news was limited to the county station, the worst thing that could happen was a slap on the wrist by the county PR department. If it reached the national scale though… the consequences were not something bearable by a small reporter like Se Cai.

I’ve accidentally stolen your son’s credit but do you really need to have my head out on the line like this?

“Should we call and ask?”

The usual peacemaker, Hai Dong offered to defuse the tension in the room.

“We don’t have time for that. This is what his driver told me personally, I swear on my life that this is correct. Should anything go wrong, I shall bear the consequence!”

They only had 12 minutes to broadcast. Se Cai knew they didn’t have time to dally on this issue so he took Xu Jing Song’s bait.

“Wonderful, everyone here heard him.”

 Xu Jing Song sat down with a triumphant grin.

“So… Should I change it or not?”

Editor Zao asked cautiously.

“Keep it in.”

Manager Wei who had been silent suddenly said, “This surname Sai… does remind me of an incident in my youth. When I was still a starting reporter, there was an old supervisor who had the similar surname in this county. During one of our talks, he told me that his surname should be called Sai instead of Xie. But since everyone kept calling him wrongly, he got used to it eventually. The senior has been promoted to the state commission long time ago but if this Sai Wu is his relatives… this means that he comes from an impressive background.”

And that settled all argument.

Xu Jing Song was the second in command at the tv station so Wei Jian Guo couldn’t just berate him outright in front of so many people but his stance was clear.

Editor Zao sighed in relief because they really didn’t have the time to rerecord the piece.

The ancient line encoder grinded through its motion with a series of creaking sound. It would take 10 minutes for the encoder to convert the digital files into tapes that could be used by the tape broadcast system. Normally, the 10 minutes would just fly by.

However, that day, a group of people stared at the encoder with bated breath.

“Please! Please don’t lag now!”

Se Cai prayed vehemently in his heart.

The several minutes stretched out like an eternity.

Finally, at 5.55 pm, the creaking stopped and the tape was successfully converted.

“Quick, get the tape to the broadcasting department!” Hai Dong yelled hurriedly.

Since the supervisors wouldn’t be doing foot work, the task fell on either him or the pregnant Editor Zao. Therefore, he grabbed the tape and ran.

With the last minute remaining, Se Cai clambered up the stairs to the broadcasting room.

“Did you bring the tape? Good! Quick! We’re racing the time here. If there’s a blank screen tonight, we’re all going to suffer.”

A balding man waited agitatedly outside of the broadcasting room.

Se Cai recognized him as Director Huang of the broadcasting department. Station rumors said his baldness was caused by constant exposure to radiation in the broadcasting room.

Director Wong accepted the tape, rushed into the broadcast center and pushed into the system.

The clock struck 6. The opening number for <Focus Tonight> started playing and then the anchorwoman, Zhang Xin Yu appeared on the broadcast monitor…

“Good evening fellow viewers, welcome to today’s <Focus Tonight>, I’m your host, Zhang Xin Yu. Tonight’s news include…”

Se Cai almost fell to the floor in relief hearing the familiar opening.

A slow clap started in the room which then rose to a rousing crescendo.

Pulled along by the emotion, Se Cai joined in the festivity and a warm fuzzy feeling suffused his heart.

It was mixture of joy, satisfaction and most importantly, of pride!

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