The Back Story - or how to not take "No" for an answer . . .

On Thursday I received an e-mail from The New Zealand Embassy informing me a Korean was to receive an honorary New Zealand Order of Merit in the Queen's Birthday Honors list today (Monday) and inviting me to attend. The ceremony was taking place during my work hours so I found out who the person was (see blog post below) and offered to write a story for my employers. My editor declined, saying the person wasn't important so didn't warrant a story.

This morning, with little happening in the newsroom and the copy desk overstaffed, I asked if I could attend anyway and was given permission but once again told it wasn't worth a story. I went, I saw, I wrote it up.

When my editor returned from lunch, I told him I'd done a story for him to look at, at which stage he told me again it wasn't worth a story.

"Read it," I said. "If you don't want to run it, don't. But read it and see."

I couldn't help but laugh when it showed up to be copy-edited shortly after.