Breaking Down

I glanced at the clock next to my computer as I was about to complete my article and go for a break after a busy morning schedule. As a reporter and journalist, I knew that the ending of an article is crucial, because that is the part where people try to find the summary of the entire thing, so I must be careful with them. As I was figuring out the words to be used and the content to be presented in the last paragraph, the ticking of the clock’s hand took me back 15-years, to early memories of our company.

Back then, I was searching for a well-qualified job as a journalist and our country was undergoing an economic crisis. Many systems had collapsed, and there was a lot of unemployment among the youth and inexperienced. I believed that the media would not be affected by the situation but was quickly proven wrong as the media too had a sharp decline and the number of people who even read newspapers decreased significantly.

I had no hopes of joining a big company. I began to search for whatever job I could get in the media to support my family. Just then, I ran into a small group of people intensely engaged in a discussion. They were all from different media companies, planning to start a news agency to improve the quality of news being put out. They had all decided to put in years' worth of savings to establish this company, that’s how invested they were!

I, too, was interested! But I had no money. However, my passion for journalism was evident, so they decided to take me in. With that began the journey of a passionate group of eleven who set out to achieve something that seemed impossible at that time: establish a news agency better than any other out there. None of us even dreamed that someday our very own company would become one of the biggest news agencies worldwide.

Interestingly enough, we named our company as ‘The News Agency’. This, we thought, was a clever move as creating an excellent first impression is crucial to gaining the public's attention. I still remember writing articles in a small, practically abandoned community hall with a couple of computers (for writing and getting some images) and lots of empty papers.

At the start, we didn’t have the budget to print an entire, big newspaper. So, we designed our newspaper as a pamphlet. We wrote it on the computer, went to the nearest printing shop, and printed several copies, the number of copies varying every day, depending on how much we could sell.

We hadn’t gotten any other employees then, so we distributed these short newspapers, or as we called them, newsletters ourselves. We only limited our distribution to three or four colonies in the beginning, we only had so many resources. Every day, some of us would take up this job of distributing, while others were out collecting local news. In the beginning, the sale of our newsletters was free, more or less like a promotion. Our major source of funding came from donations. Our hard work and quality content was well appreciated, and we got quite a few donations. More importantly though, we gained the locals' attention.

As the donations increased, we set up a professional media company. We collaborated with a paper provider and a printing service. Everything changed, we went from distributing in small colonies to the whole of the city, from pamphlet-sized newsletters to an actual newspaper, from free promotions to a paid service with door to door delivery, from a group of 11 people to around 50 including writers, editors, sales executives, and paper carriers.

We kept accepting donations for another year after that. After a couple of years more, our country ultimately came out of the economic crisis, which was just the push we needed to grow and expand even more.

We started our web platform, which looking back, was one of the most significant and effective steps in our company’s growth. The internet was rapidly getting popular at that time, and we were one of the very few who grabbed the early seat and started publishing news online.

This online platform allowed us to connect and share our newspapers with many people, both in our country and internationally. We expanded to more and more cities, and in five years we became one of the top news agencies in our country. Our headquarters was now a very well-established building supported by the government, as it housed a few government agencies as well. After observing our increasing popularity, we constantly got threatened by big media companies with offers to join and merge with their company. However, all of us were clear that we wanted none of it. Over time, we had grown from colleagues to family, serving the people and changing their outlook on life with our news agency. The original band of 11, including me, are now all editors-in-chief, with one of us stepping up as the chairperson.

Lost in these memories, the panicked voice of our chairperson brought me back to life. He was rushing towards us, phone in hand. In between labored breaths, he told us what he had just been informed of. Our building was soon going to be under attack by our neighboring country.

We were well aware of the ongoing war between our country and the neighboring one owing to a land dispute on the borders. A place in the plateau present in both countries was identified as extremely well suited for setting up powerful telescopes and radars to dive into the depths of our universe. When the plateau caught the eyes of the public on an international level, arguments stirred between the countries as each set forth their claim to the region. War was soon declared and soldiers at the border of both countries fought for a whole night, resulting in many casualties on both sides.

This dispute had us even more worried, as the opponent had a more substantial and sophisticated military base than ours. They were at an advantage. Then why attack our building? Was it because we housed some government offices, or was it a message to silence the media, to control and regulate the information and news circulated across our country? We would never know.

We were still in shock and fighting with our thoughts when our chairperson announced we only had 10 minutes left. People started rushing out. I went back, quickly uploaded by work to the cloud, grabbed a few belongings and joined the crowd trying to escape in time.

In a few minutes, the entire building was evacuated. At that moment, all I could hear were hearts beating faster, praying for the news to be fake. Just then, we saw a missile piercing through the sky with incredible speed, incoming towards the building. The missile struck the building, and in a matter of seconds it was all gone, the building, our office…all was debris. I stood motionless there, witnessing this scene of destruction, one which I hope no one has to experience.

My heart was filled with grief, and I wanted to cry out loud. It was not just the office, it felt as if our 15 years of hard work had collapsed right before our eyes. We had all our data on the cloud, and we still had other resources. We could easily start again. But none of that mattered, at that moment it felt like all was gone.

It’s kind of ironic that this article I was working on, just before the strike, analyzed how much destruction the war had done to our country. You know, now that I realize it, I had always just written articles without ever feeling personally affected by it. Now, that article had a whole another meaning to it.

Long after the dust had settled, we still stood there, motionless, with heavy hearts. Our profession was never going to be the same again.

Paraphrased by, Shreyansh and Krithi