The Stolen - Jason Pinter [29]
influential media Web sites. Nobody was better at riling
up the bourgeoisie than Paulina Cole, and in today's
America people paid good money to be pissed off.
Paulina began her career in journalism nearly two
decades ago working in the Style section at a New York
alternative weekly paper. Boring easily of reporting on
asinine trends and mindless models, Paulina took a job on
the news desk at the New York Gazette. Widely considered
one of the city's most prestigious dailies, it was at the
Gazette where Paulina first made a name for herself. And
while her progress at the Gazette matched her drive, she
quickly tired of the politics and backroom handshakes that
were staples of the old boys' club. Wallace Langston and
Jack O'Donnell were dinosaurs, analogs in a digital world.
The newsroom needed a swift stiletto in the ass, but they
were too busy sniffing brandy to realize the world was
passing them by. And when Wallace brought in Henry
Parker, then stood by him when the weasel was accused of
murder, it sickened Paulina more than anything in her career
had before. And she was not a woman who sickened easily.
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Leaving the Gazette was the easiest decision she'd ever
made. To her, that newspaper represented everything
wrong with the current system. Old. Stale. Clueless about
technology, and out of touch with the average reader.
People wanted pizzazz, something to shock them, something to ignite their senses. They didn't care about politics
unless there was sleaze behind the suit. Didn't care about
crime unless it was a celebrity drunk behind the wheel. So
Paulina was happy to dig and dish the dirt. She was happy
to be hated by the highbrow, embraced by the lowbrow.
But everyone had an opinion.
Once safely nestled in the bosom of the New York
Dispatch, Paulina had made it her goal to not only boost
the paper's circulation rates, but to do it at the expense of
the Gazette. She would topple their leaders, set fire to the
old guard and burn the paper to the ground. She'd laid the
groundwork with her articles focusing on Henry, to the
point where nearly half the city would answer "Henry
Parker" when asked what was wrong with the current state
of journalism.
But Henry was young. Not yet thirty, his proverbial
balls had not yet dropped. Going after him was like
shooting a fish in a barrel, and its ripples wouldn't travel
far. To truly bring down the Gazette, she had to stop
worrying about the epidermis, and instead dig down to its
skeleton. The old guard. The reporter the paper staked its
very reputation on.
Jack O'Donnell.
For years Jack O'Donnell had been the public face of
the Gazette. He'd won countless awards, brought respectability, integrity and readership to Wallace Langston's newspaper. Yet during her tenure there, Paulina had
noticed the old man begin to slip. His reporting had been
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Jason Pinter
shoddy, numerous quotes and sources had to be spiked by
the managing editor. Not to mention the unmistakable
odor that wafted from his desk, strong enough to make you
fail a sobriety test just by inhaling.
It was only a matter of time before somebody took a
sledgehammer to the pillar of the Gazette, and it was only
fitting for it to be wielded by someone who'd seen the
cracks up close.
Paulina turned off her office light, took the umbrella
from under her desk. Her office had a beautiful view of
the Manhattan skyline, twinkling lights amid the dark hues
of night. The skies had opened, drenching the pavement,
and the N train was several blocks away. As she strolled
through the corridors of the Dispatch, Paulina stopped by
the one office she'd asked Ted Allen to clear out for her a
few months ago. A junior media reporter had been given
the office, a reward for a promotion, but when Paulina
informed Ted Allen what she had in mind, the young man
was given a nice little cubicle by the Flavia coffeemaker.
The office was enclosed, sealed off. Exactly what she
needed.
On Paulina's orders, the office had been cleared out; not
even a dustball