REPORTERS’ DIARY : Chief Minister’s evening with veteran journalists

A journalist’s basic job is to be the people’s eyes and ears. The executive head of a state, who believes in keeping his ear to the ground, would love to take time out for newshounds, especially veterans in the profession who might have seen many CMs come and go. Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy willingly attended a ‘Meet the Press’ event organised recently by the Press Club. What did not go unnoticed at the highly anticipated event was that veteran journalists got special treatment, going by the many chances given to them to shoot questions. This table of ‘grey eminence’ had a mix of journalists, including K Ramchandra Murthy, Allam Narayana, Somashekar, Nagesh, and Gowrishankar, among others. All told, the message from Revanth Reddy is clear that, he, unlike his immediate predecessor, is open to feedback from all sections of journalists and that he has a high regard for scribes who know the pulse of people. The event was supposed to begin at 8:30 pm. However, it started at 9:49 pm and had to be concluded around 11:20 pm in view of the closing time of newspapers’ city/late city edition. Later, the Chief Minister joined the table occupied by veteran journalists for dinner, which ended around 12:10 am with the seasoned guys prepared to sit through the ‘revved-up’ conversation.