Pot Calling The Kettle Black

It continues to baffle me that people in the business of criticising the actions of others, are so adverse to criticism themselves.

I was just indirectly labelled "big mouth"today for allegedly revealing exclusives to other papers.

He was not exactly putting the finger at me, but he mentioned that he was told about "one of us" being "a big mouth" as a result of close ties to "papers like the chinese one."

Maybe I was just being too sensitive, but it is no coincidence that I speak Chinese better than most of the people there. And that his sight lingered on me when he uttered those incriminating words.

I may have been friendly with the journos from other papers from the same stable, but I certainly haven't released anything I shouldn't have. Besides, I do not see the point of being so hostile towards "family papers" or the local fraternity for that matter.

I was just being generally friendly with other people so that I could tap on their contacts and just generally, so that people would take to me and talk about things.

As a rookie, I needed to get down to talking to people, so that I know the grapevine and to further my knowledge of the local sports scene.

But this has been miscontrued as such, and something I suspect to be a legacy of my mega mistake from last week.

People just happily linked one thing to another, and decided that I am an idiot that they cannot trust. One mistake does not make somebody, much less a beginner, incompetent.

In fact, just as the great scientist Einstein once said, I reckon making mistakes means that I learn from them so much more. For example, I will never ever forget that sinking feeling I had that morning when I read how the other daily paper beat me to the scoop last week.

Today, I was just rather bemused how they were so uptight about what some sports director of some school had to say to me. He was understandably wary of speaking to the media after some bad press, but they were so ready to pounce on him.

While I thought that director could do with a more open attitude towards criticism - given that he's running a public institution, I thought they could do with a less seige-mentality and give local sports a little more support.

Criticise if you want. But when made the subject of criticism, consider it thoroughly, and raise your hands and admit to it when criticism is valid.

And perhaps, criticise an intern if you would. But remember an intern is an intern and not any little kid with no brains of their own.

I am just glad along the way that I met ex-journos who have shared with me their experiences working with them and why they have decided to move on.

The bottomline - if you want to call the kettle black, then you better be able to deal with being labelled a pot.