Murder at the Washington Tribune - Margaret Truman [59]
He’d said his boss, Paul Morehouse, had pressured him into taking the tack he had. She’d met Morehouse on many occasions; he and his wife, Mimi, had been dinner guests at the house on a number of occasions. She liked him and his gruff, no-nonsense demeanor, and knew he ran a tight ship. If he had pressed her dad to take a more sensational approach, she understood. Her boss at the TV station was somewhat like Morehouse, under pressure from above to do whatever it took to boost ratings, and by extension increase advertising revenues. Sure, the basic rules of credible journalism were bandied about, and there were attempts to honor them. But things had changed dramatically in even the short time she’d been at the station. The 24/7 cable news channels were setting the pace and agenda, recycling the day’s most startling stories over and over, the most titillating murder trials, the bloodiest family slayings, the most salacious scandals, and the juciest sexual escapades, preferably involving a politician or movie star.
That editorial philosophy had been driven home to her during her first year on the job. She’d had the makings of a provocative story in which a city official might be accused of sexual harassment. Her boss told her to run with it. She replied that she thought it needed additional checking, a second corroboration, perhaps even a third.
“Hey, sweetheart,” she was told by the producer, “this story is too good to check. Run with it.”
Before now, her father had often expressed scorn at what he considered to be the demise of responsible journalism. He’d been decidedly old school and she’d admired him for that, even though he failed, in her estimation, to take into account the realities of the situation. Times had changed; journalism had changed. Whether its evolution was good or bad seemed irrelevant to her. Technology had transformed the news business. There had long been competition to get the story, then to get it first, and the advent of the telegraph, and telephone, the radio, and now TV and the Internet had made it a race to get and spread the news in real time, preferably while it was happening—car chases, robberies caught on surveillance cameras, fires, and, of course, trials. You had to move fast or be trampled by the competition.
She had little patience for those who labeled the media left-leaning. Right-wingers owned the nation’s media. What was more important, the decisions behind what stories to cover and how to cover them had little to do with politics. Ratings and ad revenue weren’t Democratic or Republican. You ran with what would pull in the most viewers. That simple. End of story. Case closed.
She decided before returning to her rumpled bed that she would raise her concerns directly with her father at the first opportune moment. In the meantime, she needed sleep to be ready for what the next day would bring. Whether journalism had lost some of its honor and luster or not, she was a journalist and would do what was expected of her.
• • •
Joe Wilcox needed sleep, too, but didn’t get much that night. He lay in bed and felt his heart race and could feel the throb of his pulse. He dozed off a few times, but each time he looked at the glow of a digital clock at bedside, time had advanced only a few minutes. He gave it up at five, quietly slipped out of bed, and showered. Dressed in his robe and slippers, he went downstairs and, despite knowing it was too early for delivery, looked down the driveway for that morning’s Tribune. He went to the foot of the stairs and listened to hear if Georgia was awake. Confident