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When a newsman strikes the right notes

The messages are from a colleague who has boundless nervous energy that is often dismissed in office as 'tension'.

My favoured WhatsApp message ringtone is striking those familiar high-pitched piano notes. It's muted as a general rule but is kept loud during the weekends and never ceases to startle me when this happens.
The messages are from a colleague who has boundless nervous energy that is often dismissed in office as 'tension'. He has something to say about the state of the newspaper late on Friday evening and I sense he is busy on the application. But I dare not stop and stare at the device that is so tantalisingly close to me, teasing me to pick it up - a digitally distracting experience when I am driving home from work.
The flash of lights from the gadget is alluring; my thoughts are about a breaking story and the untouched message(s). Eyes on the road, head straight (never bent) and watching the flow of the traffic, I say a silent prayer, hoping that the high-pitched, droning piano tunes fade into the wee hours.
I won't be left alone, again; I curse myself and speed on, the accelerator pedal pressed as I turn up the volume on the music system that belts out Piano Man. But the noise from the device is relentless and I can sense an inexplicable cold fear rising in my chest as my mouth goes dry while I think of the many worst-case scenarios that lie ahead.
Suddenly the notification noises stop without warning at the traffic light. What follows is something I dread this late in the evening: a call from the same colleague on the night shift. I hadn't responded to his messages, hence the call that I listen to on my phone's speaker. He had spotted an error in the first version of the paper and has corrected it. He appears satisfied with the effort. Nothing else? I ask him. He mumbles in the negative. "Why didn't you go home then?" His answer is telling: "I didn't want to lose the news to social media tonight. They have technology, for people like us it's heart and commitment."
I am pleased with the effort of the evening and thank him on WhatsApp for being the last line of mobile defence after I reach home. Good folks like him keep journalism alive and vibrant through the application that has become the emissary, the go-to messenger for journalists. This is the new medium that has made print think differently and digitally. There are no bylines to show for our effort that makes its appearance the next morning after catching a few winks.
Updates, links, forwards, and PDF pages follow as the next (vicious) news cycle breaks and online discussions begin in earnest on various groups.
WhatsApp has transformed mobile journalism in its own image. It shatters myths and moulds news while helping people rattle off what's on their minds. It drives the imagination while crafting opinions every second of the day.
There's a new spirit driving journalism, my journalism. I can feel it moving in my veins, unnerving me, and is stirring from the old ways of approaching the news.
There is a community feeling about information with 65 billion WhatsApp messages going out every day. I scan the various groups that I am involved in as the missus approaches with my morning cuppa. I smile at the screen as she realises that I am responding to a newsy message.
How about an edit on that? I ask myself. I don't wait to switch on my laptop but stare excitedly at the screen in front of me that's smaller, greener, and informal. I am most focused here. Soon I am thinking on the subject I am familiar with. My world comes alive again on  Saturday as I shuffle across groups, 'thumbing' my nose into others' affairs and giving my two bits of wisdom to anyone who cares to listen.
I file, thumbs-down, agency (wires) style. Three takes later, the edit is over. My colleague mentions that my 400 words are up. It's a virtuoso performance as I brush aside the success of Friday night.
Breakfast can wait as I write a line with flourish on the US President: 'Trump has made the world realise that it needs America.'" I get kudos from a lone member of the group which makes my day.
Someone asks me how I keep going on in the profession when the media faces multiple threats. "I haven't made money out of journalism; made a lot of enemies for speaking the truth and what's on my mind." Maybe, you are respected, a friend says. I am dismissive and reply that I don't take myself seriously.
But I feel proud to be The Newsman making sense of the disharmony around me. The lines from Billy Joel's Piano Man return to wreck my reverie. It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday. And the manager gives me a smile. 'Cause he knows that it's me they've been comin' to see; to forget about life for a while; and the piano, it sounds like a carnival; and the microphone smells like a beer; and they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar; and say, "Man, what are you doin' here?"
-allan@khaleejtimes.com