NEXT time you're served a coffee, have a close look at the staff.

You see that waiter over there, the one with the friendly questioning manner?

He could be one.

The "ones" are everywhere.

Serving lunches, cleaning planes, posing as construction workers, you name it.

It seems journalism has under gone a bit of a job description revamp.

In the news-gathering circles, the meaning of "multi-skilled" has been redefined.

Journalists are now working anywhere but in the newsroom.

Newsrooms the length and breadth of the land appear these days to be mostly bereft of their reporters.

You'll find the reporters otherwise engaged in undercover "super scoop" operations, waiting on tables at the Houses of Commons, cleaning toilets at Buckingham Palace or, armed with a clipboard and hard hat, taking an unofficial tour of Hollyrood Palace.

There is of course the argument that these covert missions are justified because they highlight shortfalls in the security of possible terrorist targets.

With unabashed glee, the papers concerned splash these security failings in graphic detail and full colour across several of their pages.

Real terrorists are no doubt taking copious notes.

But aren't the investigation methods of these journalists just a cheap trick?

Sure, no-one is going to argue that "undercover" is the only way to expose hideous corruption or crime.

Yes, that's proper investigative journalism and long may it continue.

But serving Gordon Brown his lunch, laying out the Queen's breakfast table or taking your grinning picture on an empty 747 just prior to its next flight really is not the way forward.

No security system has or will ever be 100 per cent impenetrable.

Surely the talents of journalists could be better employed busting open a porn racket abusing scores of children, or probing a firm of dodgy builders ripping off hundreds of vulnerable pensioners.

And spare a thought for the souls already working in these al-Qaeda targets, who become the unwitting accomplices for these super sleuth journos.

Service occupations are already seen, (by those who've never done them), as somehow lowly.

But believe me, it is far from easy rushing about on knackered feet all day being verbally and emotionally abused by rude and fractious clientele, working long hours for paltry money.

It's hard work.

These journalists are further demeaning these jobs.

It gives the impression that anybody can don a catering hat, brandish a tray or wield a mop.

Trust me, they can't.

Journalists should leave these poor people alone, stop "exposing" what we already know, and start doing their own jobs properly.