One Of Our Serving Men Is Missing.

As a reporter I always employed my professional predecessor Rudyard Kipling's poetic lines as my mantra when doing the job: "I kept six honest serving men, they taught me all I knew. Their names were 'what' and 'why' and 'when' and 'how' and 'where' and 'who'."

Answer all those questions and you've done your job properly with a news story.

Sadly, it seems standards have plummeted so much in journalism over the years that Kipling is no-one now other than a maker of exceedingly good cakes.

Witness a tale on the BBC News website about a double decker bus crashing into a chip shop. I thought a letter to the BBC and the reporter who  subsequently brought the same tale to TV was called for:

Dear BBC and Lindsay Doyle,

I read with interest but ultimately disappointment your coverage of a bus smashing into a chip shop in Castle Street, Dudley.

A dramatic photo of the scene raised a number of questions but one above all others was screaming out.

We were given details of the serious damage to Sofi's Plaice and told how the crash had ruptured a gas main.

Then, in line with all modern news reports, we learned how people "felt" about the incident. We always, apparently, HAVE to know how people feel and it is always SO informative - not!

The man whose wife dies in an explosion is, amazingly, "upset". The gold medal winner is "over the moon" and the woman who finds a snake in her house is "shocked". Well, whodda' thought?

In this case, chippy owner Stallo Minas went with the "shocked" option. I persevered in search of an answer to my burning question but was thwarted.

I endured paragraph after paragraph after paragraph of touchy-feely drivel about how Stallo's mother "went to pieces" (literally? Ed) and how the family had received "lovely" messages of support.

Not once in all this diatribe was there a mention of someone I stupidly thought was central to the story - the bloody bus driver! Was he dead? Was he in hospital? Had he escaped injury? Did he flee the scene? Was he a dissatisfied customer of the chip shop? Was he under arrest and, if so, on what charge?

More than this, however, much more, was an answer to the question which leaps out from the photo of the crash............WHY? Why did the bus leave the road? Did the driver have a heart attack at the wheel? Was he drunk? Was he 108 and unfit to be at the wheel? Was he an outraged Moslem waging war on the decadent West's eating habits? Why, why, why?

It was, to me, the most important of Kipling's honest serving men and is admittedly often the hardest question in life to answer - but at least have a stab.

Please train your reporters - properly.

Regards,

Reg.