Shunning Sarah (6 page)

By the time I went to bed, I’d gained some practical insights that I could share with Malik, such as the fact that only married Amish men grew beards.

As I drifted to sleep, I made a mental note: bearded = married; clean shaven = single. I preferred a smooth chin myself, not that I was looking for a date in a wide-brimmed hat and a buggy. But I had admired how the author had hinted that physical labor led to physical perfection in Amish men.

•   •   •

The next morning, an email was awaiting me at the station with a forensic sketch of the sinkhole victim attached. No scoop. The
drawing was being sent to all media with a standard request to ask viewers/readers to contact law enforcement if they recognized the victim.

I printed the picture for the morning news huddle.

Thoughts of what the woman’s face might have looked like before death, and her final moments of life, distracted me from the day’s headlines for a few minutes. Details of her facial damage had not been disclosed, only that her face was missing.

I found myself mulling a centuries-old St. Jerome quote:
The face is the mirror of the mind, and the eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.

What secrets might this murder victim confess? And were any of them enough to cost her her life?

The medical examiner’s official cause of death listed “blunt force trauma to the head with fracture of the cranium, cerebral contusions, with subdural and intracranial bleeding.”

For viewers, I’d simply rewrite the science to say the woman had died from a blow to the head. There was no sign of any murder weapon. And if evidence existed as to what type of material caused the fatal injury, the cops were keeping quiet. That was routine. They liked to withhold those specifics to weed out false confessions.

Despite Bryce’s insistence that stories outside our viewing area added no value to a newscast, I’d noticed—as I was sure he must have—that the overnight ratings showed that Channel 3’s homicide lead held the audience of a popular crime drama with no drop-off.

But when I laid the depiction of the dead woman’s face on the table, he picked up the drawing and stared into her eyes as if suddenly fascinated to meet her. “So this is our victim?”

“As described to a forensic artist by Josh, yes,” I explained. “The cops need leads for the investigation, and right now the media is their best hope in identifying the victim. No doubt, the newspapers and other stations will air the picture.”

That was a no-brainer. Free news content. Then I stopped talking. I left the advocating of specific coverage for someone else at the table to suggest. But no one was brave enough to speak about what had proven to be a risky story to embrace. Everyone waited for Bryce.

To my surprise, he proposed running the picture on all newscasts and displaying it prominently on our website. “Then if someone recognizes this woman we can take credit. Each version should remind viewers that we want to follow up on our exclusive last night.”

Everyone else at the morning meeting nodded in agreement. I was beginning to think my new boss was sounding a lot like Noreen and that news directors must share some chromosome glitch that makes them immediately weigh audience payoff when making even relatively simple decisions.

Then Bryce commanded, “Make it so.” Thus ruining
Star Trek
for me forever.

The station had yet to designate a main anchor to replace Sophie after she was gunned down. Each week, someone on staff would rotate in the anchor chair for a live on-air audition. Sort of like a reality show. But that was no guarantee Channel 3 wouldn’t ultimately hire from outside.

These days, I just typed “anchor” on top of my scripts since I never knew who was going to be reading the news. The medical reporter had her turn this week.

((ANCHOR BOX))

POLICE HAVE RELEASED A

FORENSIC SKETCH OF A MURDER

VICTIM WHOSE BODY WAS

DISCOVERED IN A SINKHOLE IN

SOUTHEASTERN MINNESOTA.

((TWOSHOT ANCHOR))

RILEY SPARTZ NOW JOINS US WITH

A FOLLOW TO HER EXCLUSIVE LAST

NIGHT ABOUT THIS MOST UNUSUAL

HOMICIDE.

((RILEY CU))

DO YOU KNOW THIS WOMAN?

IF SO, THE POLICE WANT

TO HEAR FROM YOU.

I tagged off the story with the law enforcement phone number. Then, all we and the cops could do was wait. Someone, besides the killer, had to know the victim. Some murders—like those involving robbery or rape—hold little mystery concerning motive. In this case, someone took time to stash her body, rather than simply leaving her where she died or dumping her by the side of the road. Sure, some killers hide the evidence. Others don’t want to risk being caught transporting it. This felt like one of those cases where understanding the victim’s life might help make better sense of her death.

Later, I checked in with the sheriff. Still no answers. While my parents were confident the killer was an outsider, he told me citizens of Harmony were dismissing the victim as an outsider, too. I’d seen that type of denial in other slayings because people in small towns feel safer if the prey was not one of them.

That night, I dreamed I wasn’t alone. The eyes of the woman in the drawing seemed to hover over my bed. Jane Doe didn’t blink. She just waited, like she needed company and had no one else. An uncomfortable image, but not quite a nightmare. I wondered if Josh also saw her in his dreams.

When I woke, I woke tired. Even with concealer under my eyes, and airbrush makeup across my face, I hoped not to have to broadcast a live shot.

A
ll news employees were summoned via the loudspeaker for a station meeting the next morning. We stood in the center of the newsroom—apprehensive—because the announcements that came out of such gatherings were typically unpleasant, relating to staff layoffs and budget cuts.

Our old general manager and our new news director stood side by side on the assignment desk’s elevated platform so we all had a clear view. A broad Cheshire-Cat grin stretched across Bryce’s face, and I braced myself for what was about to be said.

But when the GM started to speak, his words made me think that perhaps the pattern of doom was breaking. “We all know these are tough times for the news business, but Channel 3 is through trying to wait out this cursed economy. We’re going to be proactive.”

His stump speech had our interest. “Now you’ve all had some time to get to know Bryce, and I want to tell you that together we have developed a strategy that will increase station revenue and allow us to devote our news resources in more creative ways to better compete with our rivals.”

The elocution now had the sound of a snake-oil scam, but if Bryce knew some management secret to make Channel 3 the news leader of the market, I could get over my fear of snakes.

“I’m going to let our news director fill you in on this exciting
next step for the station.” Then he turned the floor over to Bryce, who thanked him for his enthusiasm and support.

“We’re here to discuss three little words that will transform how Channel 3 covers news. Can anyone guess what they are?”

No one spoke. After all, we already had “high-definition cameras.”

We already were network “owned and operated.”

And we’d had “Doppler weather radar” for years.

Bryce waited to build suspense before yelling out the answer with an animated fist pump to emphasize each word. “ONE. MAN. BANDS.”

If he was expecting cheers, he was disappointed. We were speechless.

One-man bands are the mark of small-market stations because they’re cheap. The term is used for reporters who have to shoot their own stories. Normally rookies, not veteran journalists. And certainly not in a major market like the Twin Cities where news employees specialize, whether their skill be anchoring, reporting, videotaping, or producing. We each like to think we excel at our particular jobs.

I’d seen one-man bands toil in the field when news events took me to small markets like Mankato or Duluth. And I’d always felt sorry for them.

“Come now, you must have questions,” he said. “Think of it as Multi. Media. Journalism. Hey, that’s three words, too.”

I figured the whole session must be a trap to weed out those of us who weren’t team players. I bit down on my lip, warning myself to keep quiet. The photographers looked nervous because they sensed job security at stake. If reporters were shooting their own video, what were they going to do?

“If the reporters will be working as photographers,” cameraman Dave Chaney asked, “will photographers be going on the air?”

“An excellent question,” Bryce said. “We will be deciding that
on a case-by-case basis. Some of you may end up on camera, others will function as field producers conducting interviews as well as videotaping stories. I realize this can’t happen overnight. Staff will require training.”

One of the more recent hires, a reporter named Nicole Wilson, looked nervous, and I understood why. Carrying a camera and tripod is hard—especially in high heels. This was her first reporting job in a large market; she was probably still a probationary employee and had to do as ordered. But she was also young and blond, so I figured she’d wind up fine. I gave her a smile of encouragement, even though I myself wasn’t encouraged. Nicole responded with a flash of gratitude, and I made a mental note to do a better job of welcoming her to Channel 3 and teaching her TV chick tricks.

I was old enough to know better than to run around in heels all day. High heels are not worth the pain in your feet. Your legs may look good, but your legs do not show on the air. I’d take Nicole shopping for pants and sensible shoes.

Shooting your own video meant static reporter standups, which are boring, to say the least. I waited for one of my colleagues to mention the obvious question, but no one stepped up.

So I did. “We’re a major-market station, Bryce. How do you expect one-man bands, which typically result in poor-quality video, to increase ratings?”

Bryce seemed surprised by my question. “Who said anything about increasing ratings? Ratings are the least of our worries.”

His answer stunned me. Almost every boss I ever worked for was so obsessed with ratings that the newsroom had a toxic vibe during the sweeps months of November, February, and May. Maybe Bryce would introduce a healthier atmosphere by taking the focus off ratings. Could this be a good thing?

But then he outlined how he had crunched the numbers and the station could be more profitable by settling for second or even third place rather than fighting to be first, and I got it.

“It’s a numbers game,” he said. “And for too long, Channel 3 has been focused on the wrong numbers.”

It was clear our new boss was going to run us into the ground until we were dirt last among viewers. We would be the laughingstock among our news peers. The station would never land another Emmy again.

Bryce pulled a poster from behind the assignment desk with a pie chart labeled with topics like Salaries, Overtime, Equipment, Travel. “It doesn’t matter if our viewership goes down as long as our costs go down more. Simple economics.”

That’s when we learned Bryce had graduated with a BA in business, not journalism.

Cost is definitely a factor in weighing which stories get covered. But to hear it embraced as a primary business strategy was sacrilege to our civic mission to seek truth and report objectively. Newsrooms should not be run the same as hardware stores.

Bryce concluded his lecture by insisting that the implementation of one-man bands would allow Channel 3 to actually cover more news by being in more places at the same time. I wanted to point out a flaw in that reasoning: the station would have to buy twice as many cameras. But in the interests of job preservation, I zipped my lip.

“Channel 3 is paving the way for a new brand of TV journalism,” he said. “Working smart by doing more with less.”

He and the GM high-fived each other, which sent a loud smack reverberating through the silent newsroom. And then Bryce moved among the employees handing out buttons that read WORK SMART. Unprompted, one reporter pinned the slogan to his jacket to demonstrate he was a team player.

Hypocrite.

Kiss-ass.

Suck-up.

Slowly I stepped back, away from Bryce.

But he headed toward me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Riley, I think you’re worried because you’ve been doing your job a certain way for a long time.” He emphasized the word
long.
“You’re filled with trepidation. That happens with change, but rest assured, I have confidence you can learn new tricks.”

Then he called everyone else over. “I’ve decided Riley will be the first to kick off our one-man-band coverage. Today, you’ll be trained on how to work a television camera. Tomorrow you’ll shoot your first story.”

Bryce started a round of applause that made me nauseous.

“I thought you said this wouldn’t happen overnight,” I said.

He leaned over and whispered in my ear. “A subpar job won’t end this. What you shoot goes on the air, no matter what. Screw up and you’ll be the one who looks bad—on air and on paper. You better cooperate. I wouldn’t want to write up insubordination for your personnel file.”

B
ryce sure meant what he said.

The next morning I was assigned to cover a news conference solo on the front steps of the State Capitol. The training he had promised consisted of showing me how to turn the camera on, and explaining the concept of point-and-shoot.

As I hauled a tripod and camera up the steps of the Capitol with my oversize purse slung over my shoulder, I longed for the golden days of television—just yesterday—when all I had to carry to a story was a pen and notebook.

I had been hoping for a less public arena where my competitors couldn’t witness my inaugural shoot. Instead, Jenny Turrentine from Channel 8, clutching only a reporter’s notebook, passed me effortlessly.

“What’s going on?” She turned a couple of times to see if anyone was behind or in front of me. “Where’s your photographer? Why are you lugging all that stuff?”