As Brad Dartmouth sat at his word processing terminal,
his fingers dancing nimbly on the keyboard, his mind came to
an abrupt halt. When he started at the Los Angeles Herald,
he knew he'd make a mistake or two, as did everyone.
Unfortunately, no one prepared him for the shock he would
receive after submitting his first story to his editor. The
man was very courteous and understood that Brad would have
to be shown how things were done in the real world, yet he
was totally merciless with Brad's first masterpiece.
For a long moment, Brad stared at the computer screen.
When his editor got hold of his story, he had literally
whittled it down to nothing. He removed all the clever
descriptions, all the colorful adjectives, all the witty
commentary, and every word that wasn't in a grammar school
text book. Since that day, he'd had to work hard, but he
was finally to the point that he could type an article
without his boss butchering it beyond recognition.
On the screen, Brad had just typed the word
'inarticulate.' He knew better, but it had come naturally.
It would have to be replaced.
The problem with the word was that most newspapers
found themselves competing, not with each other, but with
TV. What this meant, was that they had to prepare their
copy in such a way that the reader could absorb the
information with as little effort as they would a news story
on television. If the reader hit a word that they were
unfamiliar with, they wouldn't look it up in a dictionary,
but often move on to a different article out of fear that
the reporter was writing above their head.
If a reader skipped over one of Brad's stories, it
really didn't matter. After all, they'd already shelled out
their money. What concerned the editors and managers was
the thought that after skipping a dozen articles, the reader
would either switch to another paper, or watch TV. To
prevent illiteracy from destroying their business, the
managers came up with the brilliant plan of publishing the
paper at a sixth grade level. For Brad, who held a college
degree, it was tough to use only the words he knew when he
was twelve.
Faced with the word 'inarticulate,' Brad consulted his
mental thesaurus for synonyms. He could have put
'uneducated,' but instead chose the word 'dumb.' Not only
was it shorter, but it was much more to the point.
He made the change and once again began to type on the
article he'd been assigned. He'd also realized when he'd
been hired that he would have to pay his dues in the
newspaper business before he began to get the big stories,
and this assignment was the classic example. It amounted to
nothing more than filler that could be cut or delayed if the
space was needed for something more important.
Brad had been given a few stories that had proven to be
interesting, but it seem that his editor still didn't trust
him with the really big news. He had asked him to cover a
few minor protests, asked him to do a story on concert
ticket swapping services, and had allowed him some space in
the Sunday paper to overview the practices of several of the
psychic counselors around town. The protests were full of
the age-old rhetoric that had been the mark of political
malcontents. The ticket swapping service hadn't turned out
to be the organized scalping racket Brad had hoped, but was
simply a brokerage service where supply and demand set the
prices. Even the would-be Gypsy fortunetellers weren't out
to swindle the public by telling them that the world was
about to end, and that for five thousand dollars, they could
buy safe passage in God's flying saucer.
The fact that in a world full of thievery and
corruption, Brad hadn't been given a single decent story was
beginning to wear thin. All he needed was one big break.
One story that would put him in the spotlight and win him a
Pulitzer prize, was all he wanted. But it hadn't
happened...
Brad pushed his disillusionment aside for a moment
while he instructed the word processor to store the article.
He rose from his seat, walked to his editor's office, and
let his mind drift for a moment about his next assignment.
Once he would have imagined being sent out to uncover a
government plot to cover-up a secret project, but now he
knew otherwise. More than likely it would be just another
filler piece.
It was people like Terry Johnson and Walter Fletcher
who got all the good stories, leaving the bottom-of-the-
barrel stories for guys like Brad. Johnson didn't have a
college degree, or even a great talent for writing, but he
was one of the highest paid reporters on the staff. He
enlisted in the Army after high school and spent a few years
as a Green Beret before he lucked his way into reporting for
the Army Times. When he got out of the service, he
immediately went to work for the Herald as a foreign
correspondent. The man had an expense account, could travel
any corner of the globe on a minutes notice, and had written
several front-page stories. All because he was lucky enough
to be sent to exciting places like Afghanistan, El
Salvadore, and Kuwait.
Then there was Walter Fletcher. The man wasn't but two
years older than Brad, and hadn't written a good story in
over three months. A year ago, he had been assigned to
cover a series of killings on the East side and had
discovered that they were drug-gang executions before the
police. Two months later he found that gang members were
using the city sewers to transport drugs, once again
scooping the police. The paper continued to pay him a huge
salary (much more than Brad's) in the hopes that maybe,
someday, he might write another good story. Until then,
Fletcher spent most of his days driving around in his
Porche, and hanging out with the drug dealers and thugs he
knew so well.
Brad knocked on the door frame of his editor's office,
and John Wheeler looked up from the copy that he was
destroying with a red felt tip marker. Wheeler motioned for
Brad to come in and sit down, then capped his marker. "I
take it you finished the piece you were working on," he
stated as he rubbed his eyes. Wheeler always used the term
'piece,' because he usually couldn't remember which reporter
was doing what story.
"Yes sir," answered Brad.
"Good, because I've got an important project for you.
This one is a little involved, so I want you to spend at
least a week researching."
Brad perked up for a moment as he wondered what kind of
assignment could be big enough spend a week on. For a
fleeting moment he wondered if this might be the moment he'd
been waiting for. "So, you want me to plan for a deadline
of next Thursday?" he asked, excitedly.
"Well, I don't want you to feel tied down by a deadline
on this one. If on Monday, you think you need some more
time to research the story, let me know. I'm thinking
you'll have to spend a little time undercover. You may need
some extra time to gain these peoples confidence," explained
Wheeler.
Undercover? Gain their confidence? Brad's heart began
to race and his imagination went wild. This was it! He was
going to do something big! Maybe he was going to infiltrate
a drug ring. He'd get inside their organization, unmask the
king-pin, and expose the elected cronies who acted as his
henchmen. Sweat formed on his palms and his mouth went dry,
as he waited for his boss to spell out the details of the
assignment.
Wheeler rose from his seat and peered through the glass
that comprised his office's inside walls. "What I want you
to do, Brad, is a piece on the homeless."
"The homeless?" screamed Brad, as his dreams crashed to
earth and shattered on the ground before his feet. His
sudden outburst attracted the attention of several
individuals outside the office, and caused his editor to
spin around in amazement. "Did you actually say the
homeless? I was hoping this was going to be something big,
but it's just the same-old-shit I always get."
Wheeler moved to the door and gently pushed it shut for
the little extra privacy it supplied. It was apparent that
Brad had a problem with something besides the story, and to
Wheeler, Brad was worth the effort to find out what it was.
"I take it you don't approve of your assignment," he said,
as he sat on the corner of his desk near the young reporter.
"Approve? Hell no, I don't approve."
"Okay... Why not?"
Brad looked at the man with a stern glare for a moment
before starting his next sentence. How could the man not
know? How could he not understand how it felt to always
receive filler stories while he watched those around him
land the big scoops? "I don't approve because you always
give me these bullshit jobs, and won't trust me with a big
story."
"I do trust you. That's why I'm giving you this piece,
because I know I can trust you to do it fairly and honestly.
Think about it. I trusted you to do our papers article on
psychics and mediums, because I knew you could handle it
correctly. A lot of reporters would have written something
that would have made these people into a bunch of crazies.
You did a fine job with the piece. You handled the psuedo-
religous aspects with finesse, and presented the paranormal
details like channeling and astralprojection without making
them sound ridiculous."
"It was a good piece of work, with a unique feeling,"
he continued, "that only you could have provided. That's
why I want you to do this story. I want the same
understanding and compassion in this."
"Big deal," snorted Brad. "I want to do something
important... something with an impact."
"I see," replied Wheeler as he moved from the corner
desk to the chair on the other side. "You want me to send
you after the Plumbers."
"What?" asked Brad.
"The Plumbers. The men caught in the Watergate break-
in. Right?"
"Well, yeah. Something worthwhile."
"If that's what you're waiting for, you may as well
quit now, and save us both a lot of trouble."
Brad recoiled in obvious shock, and Wheeler smiled
slightly when he saw that he had succeeded in startling him.
He leaned back in his chair and looked into Brad's eyes with
the look of a man about to pass on the secrets of the
universe. "You see, Brad, Woodward and Burnstein weren't
given the Watergate story-- they made it. They took the
initiative. They found it on their own. A story is what
you make of it."
When he saw the confused look on Brad's face, he leaned
toward him and tried to explain his point. "Sometimes you
can't confuse a story with too much of the truth. You've
got to look at the whole picture, and find out what's going
on behind the scenes. That's what Woodward and Burnstien
did. They saw what was a simple break-in at the Watergate,
but they wondered why someone would break into an office
that had nothing valuable, and eventually they came up with
the story that forced a President out of office."
Brad was still confused by what his boss had said, but
made an effort to understand. "Are you trying to say that
Woodward and Burnstein made-up the conspiracy?"
"No. They didn't make it up: a Congressional committee
verified that there was a high-level government cover-up.
What I'm saying is that sometimes you have to fill in the
blanks yourself."
"You mean lie."
Wheeler once again leaned back in his chair and ran his
fingers through his hair. He knew from the moment he read
Brad's first story that he had potential, but he needed
someone to point him in the right direction. If he could
get the boy to see the whole story instead of just the
surface, he might turn him into a fairly good reporter.
With renewed vigor, he tried to explain again.
"There was a movie about a newspaper man: Citizen
Kane."
"I've seen it," interrupted Brad.
"Good. In that movie, Charlie Kane sent a man to cover
the Spanish-American War. When his war correspondent got to
Cuba, he reported that the people were all very friendly,
and that he couldn't find any fighting. When Kane read the
man's message he said that if reporter couldn't find him a
war, he'd make my own. He then wrote a piece about a great
battle and published it as the truth. See, there was a war,
there was a correspondent, and there was fighting. They
just weren't the same ones that he used in his story."
"Mr. Wheeler, I'm listening to what you're saying, but
all I'm hearing is you telling me to lie. In my book,
that's a little unethical," explained Brad.
"If I assigned you as an art critic, and you gave an
artist a bad review, the man might be upset. Well, what if
he committed suicide. Some people might blame you and say
that it was unethical of you to kill him. With that in
mind, you might be motivated to give all the artists good
reviews. But that would be unethical, because you have a
duty to the public to report things as you see them."
"I can't give you a big story, because whether a story
is big or not is up to you. Learn to use your imagination.
Don't dwell on the surface details; get to the meat. If the
meat isn't juicy enough... then spice it up."
"A story on the homeless might not seem like the key to
success, but if you keep your ears open, ask them why
they're homeless, you might come up with something that
could pan out. Do you think you can try it?"
Brad had entered the conversation frustrated and
disillusioned, and now found himself thoroughly confused.
He told his boss that he'd work the story, try to find an
angle that might be innovative, then stood to leave the
office. Wheeler gave Brad a friendly slap on the back and
sent him on his way.
As he wandered back to his desk, Brad found himself
trying to decipher Mr. Wheeler's oratory. Though still
upset at having been given a nothing of a story, Brad did
appreciate his boss's advice. The man could have been ugly
about his initial reaction and told him to take what he
could get, but instead he had taken the time to try to teach
him something. He wondered, for a moment, how many other
reporters he'd had the same conversation with. It was
obvious by the man's tone and demeanor that he was genuinely
interested in helping Brad succeed, and that counted for
something.
Maybe if he played his cards right, he could find a
good story in this assignment after all. He might get lucky
and find someone who the mob was after, and had taken to the
streets to hide. Or, perhaps, an eccentric millionaire who
had followed in the footsteps of Howard Hughes, and chosen
to disappear from society. He'd probably find a wino or
two, but he might even discover that the government was
actually responsible for making the people homeless.
With that happy thought in mind, he picked up his
sports coat and steno pad, and headed for the door.
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