Savage News

by Jessica Yellin

  She turned and grinned at him “Hey, Hal. Am I glad to see you,” she said with all the warmth she could muster. “I have a big story. Think you could help me get it on air?”

  To Hal’s credit, he instantly appreciated the newsworthiness of her mole discovery. “That’s killer! What does the White House have to say?” he asked, looking concerned.

  “Nothing. Matt tried Adam Majors twice, and by email,” she said, wondering whether he was going to hold up her live shot pending White House comment on a mole.

  “Well then, way to start off on the right foot,” he replied, beaming. “I’m calling Bibb now and getting you up.” He walked away, punching numbers into his iPhone, prompting Natalie to think that maybe Hal wasn’t so bad after all.

  As Natalie walked back to her desk, Dasha materialized by her side. “I do not like this, asking help from Hal,” she said.

  “Oh he’s harmless. At least he can be useful.”

  Dasha narrowed her eyes. “Lie down with fleas, swim with fishes.”

  Natalie squinted at her for a moment and decided it was probably best not to correct her.

  When they got back to her desk, Matt was standing there, shaking his head. “Bad idea, very bad idea.”

  Natalie waved him off. Why was everyone second-guessing her? “You’re just mad I got this scoop without you, producer,” She pulled the mirror out of her makeup bag to do the once-over—hair, eyelashes, smile—and felt uneasy about what she saw.

  “Earth to Natalie,” Matt said, perched at the edge of her desk. “I’m saying, you’re not going to get it on air. Not if Bibb’s involved. She is not, repeat not, your friend. She is one hundred percent Team Ryan.”

  Why was he so opposed to everything she did?

  “Bibb may not be the best bet for my future success, or humanity’s, but she won’t want another network to report this first,” Natalie said, determined to cling to something. “Besides,” she added, pointing at the TV where Nelly was doing rapid-fire questioning of all twelve pundits in boxes. “It would be impossible for me to get on air without her.”

  “You should have told her you have big news, without saying what it is,” Matt said. “Whet her appetite without showing all your cards.”

  “Should I also beware of putting the cart before the horse but hold off on counting my chickens? I’m not entirely clear on the rules of mixed-metaphor cage fighting, but I’m pretty sure the fact that mine at least are somewhat consistent makes me the winner.”

  If his dourpuss expression was anything to go by, Matt did not agree. “Make fun if you want, but I’m trying to help you. She’s a Machiavellian monster and she’s going to screw you if she gets the chance.”

  Natalie put up a hand. “Abuse metaphors if you must but please leave screwing out of it.”

  “Ho ho, sounds like I came in at just the right time,” Hal said, bustling between them. He looked flushed, and Natalie hoped it was because of his errand, not what he’d overheard. “Great news! Bibb is dying for the story. We just spoke to New York, they want Natalie on air ASAP. Live from the third-floor flash studio now!”

  “Thank you, Hal!” Natalie smiled at him, hating herself for feeling gratitude. For a moment she almost understood why management kept Hal around. He got things done.

  She turned her beam on Matt. “Aren’t we lucky to have Hal and Bibb in our corner?”

  “You’re going to regret this,” Matt said in a low voice.

  “Want to bet?” she yelled back over her shoulder as she walked toward the elevator. At the last moment she swerved and turned to take the stairs instead.

  She practically skied the four flights down to the studio in her excitement. Her hand trembled a little as she ran a pass over the digital lock from the stairwell. She had a scoop about the First Lady of the United States! This was nearly the pinnacle of the scoop pyramid and by far the highest level story she’d ever broken. Stairs one, elevator zero, she thought. Let’s hear it for being smart and not dropping the ball. And having big hair.

  The door to the flash studio clicked open and she stepped into inky darkness. It was dead silent and cold enough to freeze meat. The room had the quality of a morgue.

  The only light came from a picture of the White House projected on a plasma screen behind a large news desk. In front of it stood a robotic camera with lights hung overhead, still dark, which was odd because the control room in New York should have known she was coming by now. Shivering, she made her way to the news desk, fished around for a microphone which she ran up her shirt, and plugged in the earpiece. She could hear the anchor in New York talking about the photos. A TV monitor in front of her was flashing Breaking News!

  “Hey, guys, I’m here!” Natalie said to anyone who might be listening. “Can you turn on the lights?”

  As she waited, Natalie started rehearsing what she would say. “Heath, these photos are many things. Unexpected, controversial, and ATN can exclusively report—fake. What we can definitively say is they raise questions about the First Lady’s migraine and her whereabouts.” She stopped herself. The build had taken too long. “Heath,” she tried again, “ATN can exclusively report that this stunning photo...is a fake. This image of the First Lady was taken months if not years ago. And we know because of the tiny telltale mole on her neck.”

  The room was still pitch-black, and she hadn’t heard anything from the control room. Her fingers felt like icicles.

  Impatient, she was reaching for her phone to dial the news desk when a voice spoke in her ear. “This is Mitch in New York with TalkTalk Live! What do you have for us?”

  Classic. The control room, in charge of everything that went on air, was always the last to know the news. “Hi, Mitch. I’ve got a scoop about the photo. It’s about the mole on FLOTUS’ neck.”

  “Cool. I heard something about that. Stand by.”

  The lights came on, the room began slowly to brighten, and Natalie waited, counting seconds as she practiced the words she would say. “If you look closely at the photo, you’ll see a mole on the First Lady’s neck that was removed six months ago. No—” She stopped, took a breath and restarted. “If these photos had been taken today, even this week, that mole would be missing.”

  Another voice spoke in her ear. “Hi, this is TalkTalk in New York. We have a lot to get in, a lot to juggle. What do you have?”

  Quelling her rising frustration, she went through it again. The mole. The photos. FLOTUS. “No one else has it,” she finished, hoping to instill a sense of urgency.

  “Yeah. I think I heard something about that,” the new voice said. “Not sure we’ll need you, but stand by.”

  How would they not need the mole? It proved the pictures were fake, that the White House was covering something up, that the First Lady was—

  The show’s theme music came on. “Lets all talk, talk, talk, talk! Let’s keep up the talk, talk!”—and they dipped to commercial break.

  Natalie was incredulous. Instead of coming to her they had gone to an ad for prescription pain medication, giving someone else and some other network the chance to scoop her.

  I could tweet it, she thought. On the monitor an older man in a doctor’s coat was asking if she or anyone she loved suffered from back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, or any other kind of discomfort.

  But if I tweet it and no one else has it, then other networks might pick it up from me before ATN runs it.

  Now an oil company was explaining its plans for sustainably powering America, which had something to do with family picnics in racially diverse parks and the migration of monarch butterflies.

  On the upside, it could lead to a huge bump in my Twitter followers—

  At a chain restaurant that had recently suffered an E. coli outbreak, a family who had been fighting was brought back together by free breadsticks and one large pitcher of either soda or iced tea.

  —
on the downside, it could incite the wrath of Bibb and ATN and bump me out of the running for the White House, cuing of plagues and locusts, etc.

  And then the commercial break was over. The screen went dark, Breaking News music soared, the photo popped up in the video monitor along with a now countless number of pundits shaking their heads in boxes. Nelly, looking especially excited, announced an “exclusive development.”

  Someone in Natalie’s ear said, “Stand by to go live on TalkTalk. We have two photos. The doctored one with the mole and one without.”

  “Great, I’m ready,” Natalie answered, putting her phone aside.

  The rush of excitement surged again. On camera, Nelly said, “These photographs are as new to us as they are to you. We have our experts poring over them and one of our experts has made a discovery. Ryan, tell us, what you’ve found.”

  Natalie stared. Had he just said—? Did she hear—?

  On screen, Ryan, once again in his superhero of news stance outside the Colombian embassy, began to speak. “Nelly, it’s a stunner but your own eyes will tell you the truth on this. If you look at the leaked picture, you’ll see a mole on the First Lady’s neck. Look carefully. You see it? Now, look at this video from the First Lady’s appearance on a morning show last week.” The screen cut to the First Lady dust-busting on The Today Show wearing the red blouse.

  “No mole,” Ryan intoned. “That’s because she had it removed a while back, and that means this image is fake, certainly not from tonight’s dinner. Which leads us to wonder.” He leaned forward and shot a molten look into the camera. “Who faked this photo? What do they hope to achieve? And where is First Lady Anita Crusoe now?”

  Not just Natalie’s fingers but her entire body felt frozen. They had given her scoop, her research, the photos she herself had found, to Ryan. Ryan, who knew nothing about the First Lady.

  Her mind got loose and jumpy. Was this Bibb’s doing? Or the What Girls’? Hal? What if Bibb didn’t know? But Hal had said she did, that she was excited.

  He could have lied.

  Surely he wasn’t still punishing her for refusing to get a drink with him?

  Was it a mistake? Was it a cabal?

  She forced herself to inhale deeply, working to keep her voice even as she spoke into the microphone to whoever was listening in New York control room. Establish facts. Don’t accuse or protest. Avoid sounding like a crazy person. Casually she said, “Hi, control room. Um, why didn’t you guys come to me?”

  “Really sorry,” a deep male voice spoke into her ear. It wasn’t one of the people she’d talked to earlier but another one. “That was a terrific tidbit,” it enthused. “We’ve had Ryan on the show all night so he’s part of our narrative. Just wanted to stick with him and get that great piece of information on as soon as we could. No one else has the mole yet. Glad we got it on air in time. Thanks for the reporting. You’re clear.”

  “But I still—”

  The lights went off in the studio. She felt suddenly exhausted, as if someone had turned off her power, too. Unable to move, she sat alone in the dark watching the TV monitor. “ATN’s Exclusive: First Lady Molegate.” They already had a name for it.

  Ryan was on camera again. She couldn’t bear to listen to him. Natalie closed her eyes and removed her earpiece.

  She wanted to cry and scream “it’s not fair” like a five-year-old having a meltdown. It was an inviolate rule of reporting that if you got a scoop, you got the credit. That was how you made your name as a reporter. If they were going to give your reporting away, what was the motivation to skip Thanksgiving or Christmas or your father’s fucking last month alive? And what reporter would take someone else’s scoop?

  Someone who would put anything in his mouth, Natalie told herself.

  When the phone rang, she realized she was in tears. She composed herself and heard Bibb’s voice in her ear.

  “I heard you are upset,” Bibb launched right in. Apparently she hadn’t done as good a job of sounding composed and casual when talking to New York as she’d thought. “This is not a beauty pageant, it’s a team sport. What matters here is that we—our team—got the information on air before anyone else. That is a home run for us. And I’ll be sure the right people know your contribution. ATN owns the mole. Thanks to you.”

  She wanted to scream at Bibb and Hal and all the What Girls and especially Ryan. But, exhausted, she’d just hung up.

  The door opened and Matt sauntered in. “That went well. Still happy to have Hal and Bibb in your corner?”

  For a moment she looked at him silhouetted in the light from the hallway and let the basics of the situation really sink in. Characters. Narrative. It was all so ludicrous.

  She unplugged the microphone and stood up from the desk. “You must be happy,” she said.

  He shook his head. “No. That went the way I predicted, not the way I wanted. There’s a difference.” He held the door for her and then followed her out of the studio.

  Dasha was waiting in the hallway, arms crossed. “I do not like this Greasy. He is cheating.”

  “It is what it is,” Matt said. “It’s up to us to be better.”

  “Oh this is my fault? What’s my problem now, I was too thorough? I shouldn’t try to be a good reporter?” Natalie knew she sounded bitter but she couldn’t help it.

  “You’re missing the point, again,” Matt said, irritation replacing smugness in his voice. “I know you’re not stupid so you must be in denial. Let me spell it out. It’s not about the reporting. It’s about TV.” He fixed her with a steady gaze. “It’s about looking and sounding the part.”

  She started walking down the hallway, Matt and Dasha scurrying behind. Things had to change, but how could she compete with Ryan? He wasn’t even a reporter. He was like a news actor playing...a part.

  And like a sea wall giving way under the thrashing of a storm, awareness came crashing into her exhausted mind: Matt was right.

  They’re news actors, Natalie told herself. Everyone’s acting a part in the drama. Play the part. Play the game. Win the game. Natalie exhaled. Rate now to report later.

  “I see it on your face,” Matt said, now at her side.

  “See what?” she asked, reluctant to give in to him.

  “That you know I am right.” He looked smug. “That you know I know how to win this.”

  “Really, Newstradamus?” she said as they walked past the elevators toward the stairwell.

  He moved to stand directly in front of Natalie, stopping her in her tracks, until she relented. “Okay, okay!” she said. “What do you think I need to do?”

  “Step one. Hair. Makeup. Tan.”

  “I knew you’d say that,” she moaned. But she understood. Matt knew how to play the game. Why not take some advice from an expert? Turning, she walked to the elevator and hit the down button. As they rode to the lobby, she made a decision.

  Deep breath. She’d do it.

  9

  Some of the President’s Men

  “Absolutely not.” The First Lady was on the phone, her dormant incredulity flickering to life. “I will not play along with your reckless games. Don’t ask again.”

  She stabbed End and handed the cell phone back to her agent Beth.

  “They’ve lost their minds,” she said and started pacing the room, replaying the conversation in her head. It was her chief of staff calling to say the president’s team wanted to issue a statement in the First Lady’s name, blaming Venezuela for the doctored photo and demanding an apology from President Gomez. Of course such an accusation by the First Lady against her country of origin would be convincing. It would garner international attention.

  There was no evidence the photo came from the Venezuelans. It could just as easily been produced by BamBam’s people, or any huevón with access to Photoshop. Hell, the White House could have made it up to serve some interest sh
e hadn’t considered.

  They want me to attack my own people. For this? No.

  The president’s staff consistently treated the East Wing, where the First Lady’s staff worked, as an inferior rival faction of the White House, undeserving of real information which had to be kept and protected by the big boys in the West Wing.

  As she worked it over in her mind, the First Lady’s incredulity grew into anger.

  It was Majors who had come to her team last week announcing that Mrs. Crusoe would be seated next to that criminal BamBam Lystra at the summit dinner. Majors planned to announce this to the press to “demonstrate our absolute neutrality on the question of the purported rape,” and make clear that “personal disputes won’t get in the way of the summit and our mission to secure a stable energy future.” She’d nearly exploded with fury, instructing her staff to send back a message: if the president wants his wife next to BamBam Lystra, he’ll have to get himself a new wife.

  That had seemed to put the issue to rest. Until her husband had extended an invitation to BamBam’s monstrous child, Rigo.

  She stared at the Persian rug, unseeing and now nearly shaking with restrained fury. The manipulation was never ending. It was as though she was meant to stand for nothing, no values, no loyalties. Just play along.

  Truth was, she’d been compliant, for years. Well before they took office. Before the campaign. From the beginning. She’d so rarely spoken up, so rarely made demands. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t fight them, but she could create trouble. She could make her husband’s life difficult. She would make sure of it.

  THE EARLYBIRD™/ FRIDAY / 5:32 A.M.

  THE E-NEWSLETTER TRUSTED BY WASHINGTON'S POLITICAL ELITE

  Good morning, EarlyBirders™. Here are the morning’s need-to-know stories.

  SIREN: MORNING MYSTERY! WHO FAKED THE FLOTUS PHOTO!? WHO LEAKED IT!? Send your tips to earlytipster@theearlybird.com.

  Outrage at 1600: White House Comms Director Adam Majors in a rare overnight statement: “The press’s reckless decision to broadcast a doctored photo of First Lady Anita Crusoe is exactly why America hates the media. As I previewed, the First Lady was home with a migraine and not with Mr. Lystra at the summit dinner. The president is disappointed in this coverage but continues to do the important work of ensuring America’s energy security.”