Amanda Wakes Up Page 5

  “Both sides,” I said and smiled. “Problem solved.”

  “Yes!” he said, holding his hands out at me, palms wide open. “That’s it! You’ve got it.”

  Chapter 4

  Backstory

  “Then he offered me the job!” I was on the phone telling Mom all about Benji and FAIR News and the offer.

  “Well, sweetheart, it sounds like it’s all coming together and all your hard work is paying off. Maybe now that Harriet Tubman is on the twenty-dollar bill, you can be next.”

  I smiled. There wasn’t much Mom couldn’t connect to the subject of women’s equality. “They should put a journalist on the hundred!” I said. “Can you believe I’m going to be on national TV! I mean, this is it. My dream is coming true. Benji’s right—there is no impossible dream!”

  “I remember that day you first came up with your dream,” Mom said before uttering the two words that said it all. “Suzy Berenson.”

  “Suzy Berenson,” I repeated.

  I remembered the moment, too. I was sitting at the breakfast table in a funk. I was fifteen years old—old enough to realize that my original childhood dream of “being a star” probably wasn’t going to be possible with my feeble talents. I’d attempted a few avenues. First up: dancer. Ballet, tap, and jazz classes—none of them worked. I never developed the skill to stand out in a recital. Next: musician. That didn’t pan out either. I took piano lessons but wasn’t driven enough to practice regularly. Singer. Out of the question. The distressed facial expression of my music teacher when I opened my mouth was hard to miss. Even friends would slap their hands over their ears as I attempted to belt out “Tomorrow” like Annie.

  Actress. Seemed like a logical fit. Mom had gotten me into children’s community theater at seven years old, and I liked being on stage. But while I spent a lot of time daydreaming about getting the lead role, I always ended up being cast as a flower (nonspeaking, garden variety). The lead always went to Betsy, the little girl with the hovering mother who would brush Betsy’s long blond hair while dutifully going over her lines.

  I couldn’t help but notice that being the star looked good. Betsy got more attention and more opportunity than the rest of us. Somebody was going to put her in a commercial. After Mom and Dad got divorced, Mom tried to keep everything the same at home, but I knew money was tight and figured if I was a star we’d never have to worry about bills again. Mom didn’t want me worrying; she told me to just follow my dream. “You don’t get to pick your parents, sweetheart, you only get to pick your path,” she told me.

  Once we were on our own, Mom and I developed a morning ritual—over breakfast we’d watch The Morning Show with Suzy Berenson on the old TV that took up half our kitchen counter. Suzy Berenson delivered all the news, uplifting or devastating, in her soothing, measured way. Nelson Mandela becoming president of South Africa, Princess Diana’s car crash—Suzy brought them into our kitchen. One morning I was home sick from school and heard Mom gasp and cover her mouth. I looked up in time to see ashy gray smoke floating from an explosion that sliced through a federal building in Oklahoma City. The news, even when it was bad, gave Mom and me something to focus on other than Dad’s absence.

  Then, on one fateful morning, sitting at the breakfast table, staring at the TV as I had a thousand times, something was ignited. There was Suzy Berenson in her TV studio, interviewing a family whose baby desperately needed a heart transplant. I was gripped, praying a heart would come through before it was too late. Leaning ever so slightly forward, Suzy nodded with compassion, asking about their pain. And then something amazing happened. Right in the middle of the segment, a hospital called. They’d found a heart for the baby! The family burst into tears of joy, as did I in the kitchen, then they got up right there in the studio and left for the hospital. All on live TV! And that’s when it hit me. Television news is powerful! It can save lives. And, hey, I like asking questions and solving problems, too. Wait, does that job pay money? So, at fifteen, TV news became my North Star, lighting a path to a bigger, brighter future.

  On the first day of college, at freshman orientation, I sat in an auditorium among two hundred budding broadcast journalism students. The dean admonished all of us idealistic freshmen to be realistic. “This is a highly competitive business,” she warned. “I know all of you want to be network news anchors, but look around this room. Only two of you will ever make it to a network.” I turned around in my seat to see who the other person was.

  I focused on standing out in my journalism classes so I would be chosen as a reporter for the campus TV station. Professor Jordan taught us that journalism was a public service—we were to be “watchdogs” of government and institutions and authority figures. We had access to powerful people that others didn’t. He had three principles we were to live by. He wrote them on the board:

  Be objective: check your personal biases and emotions at the door. The story is not about you.

  Be truthful: double-check your facts and the credibility of your sources. A journalist is only as good as her sources. Get two of them and make sure they’re rock solid.

  Never burn a source: they’re your lifeblood. Ask yourself if you’d be willing to go to jail to protect a confidential source. If not, don’t use that info. No surprises for your sources.

  Professor Jordan had a whole bunch of other helpful TV tips, too: avoid clichés, don’t bury the lede, and never end a report with the tired tag “Time will tell.” He taught us to think of our script as a winding country road, some parts uphill, some down, some shaded, some sunny. I didn’t really get that, but I got an A because I worked my ass off and handed everything in on time.

  I focused on my future with the zeal some kids used to party. On Thursday nights as my dorm threw yet another kegger, I’d be in the studio editing field tapes for Friday’s newscast. I was too busy to indulge in the usual antics like frat parties or crushes on professors.

  “I think Professor Davidson likes you,” a classmate said with an insinuating smile one day as we walked out of our U.S. History class. It was true, Professor Davidson had directed much of that morning’s lecture toward me.

  “He invited me to lunch,” I confessed to her.

  “Ooh, are you going to sleep with him?” she asked, lifting her eyebrows in anticipation.

  “I can’t,” I told her. “I have a two P.M. media law class.”

  I never knew what people meant by a runner’s high—that euphoric release of endorphins that tells you everything in the world will be all right—until the first time I went out on campus on a cold day with a camera and microphone and I felt it. My toes were numb, my nose was running, the metal mic was almost too cold to hold. Still, I felt the hot rush through my veins as I practiced talking into the camera for the first time.

  “In three, two, one . . . wait! What was I saying? Let me redo that. Okay, in three, two, one . . . hold on! Can we rewind that last one, so I can look at it again?”

  I flubbed take after take of my stand-ups until my poor classmate, shivering behind the camera, said, “I think you’re just going to have to stick with one of these even if it sucks.”

  I did suck. But somehow that didn’t matter; the TV drug had hit my bloodstream and I felt its intoxication immediately. I would bring important campus issues to light. With a camera, I could get the university president to talk to me. I had pull now. I had power—and attention: students thanked me for revealing the lousy cafeteria conditions and the dorm’s rat infestation problem. I wanted to do even bigger, better stories. So when I graduated and got my first job, working for Gabe Wellborn (for crying out loud!), America’s Premier Newsman, it looked like I was on the fast track to dream fulfillment.

  “I feel like everything has been leading up to this moment,” I told Mom on the phone. “From Campus TV to FAIR News.”

  “Maybe you’ll have the chance to interview Virginia Wynn,” Mom said. “Wo
uldn’t that be thrilling? I think she has a real shot at becoming president. Two powerful women talking.”

  Oh, boy. It was going to be a long year if Mom tried to turn every one of my assignments into a campaign commercial for her favorite candidate, Virginia Wynn, the heavily favored Democrat. “Yes, Mom,” I said with resignation, “that would be exciting.”

  • • •

  The day after Benji made the offer, Charlie and I went out to celebrate at a charming little trattoria we’d discovered in the West Village. Flush with the promise of my new contract, we splurged on the forty-five dollar prix fixe and a bottle of wine. I couldn’t stop smiling.

  “A clothing allowance!” I squealed.

  “You’ll be able to buy pants,” Charlie said, clinking my glass.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t. Pants free is my signature look.” I winked.

  “Seriously, what else did Diggs say about what you’ll be doing?”

  I loved that Charlie was hanging on every word from my Benji meeting, though it seemed funny that he’d only refer to Benji as Diggs, as if the name Benji was just too goofy to call a grown man.

  “He said FAIR News will be a place for viewers to get all the information, not just the left-right paradigm that’s so pervasive on cable news.” I hoped my use of “paradigm” and “pervasive” might make Benji’s plan sound more strategic.

  “What does that mean?” Charlie asked, tearing another hunk of bread from the loaf and dunking it in the last of the spicy olive oil.

  “It means Benji wants to go back to a time when the news gave people real information. And it was information they could use to solve problems, rather than the partisan echo chamber where viewers just hear their own warped worldview.” I impressed myself with that one. Hearing my own explanation was the first time I really got it.

  “Huh?” Charlie said.

  I got more emphatic. “Benji wants to bring the country together. Did you know that 125 million people watched Walter Cronkite cover the first moonwalk? Benji thinks TV news can bring both sides together again.”

  “I think that rocket has left the launchpad,” Charlie said, taking another bite of the Bolognese. “People look for confirmation bias, not real information. Do you know that in 2004, scientists did MRIs on George Bush and John Kerry supporters and found that their brain centers only lit up when they thought the other candidate was lying, not their own candidate? Even when they read the exact same statement.”

  That was interesting, though I thought Charlie might be missing the point. “But I like Benji’s idea of bringing both sides together to hear each other. Maybe that’s what those Bush and Kerry supporters needed. I want to do that.”

  Charlie gave a thoughtful pause. “Maybe you should focus on human interest stories. Like that interview you did with the cop’s wife. That was terrific.”

  “Thank you. Benji mentioned that one, too. He thought I was showing good emotion. He thinks reporters don’t always need to be objective.” I brought my thumb to my mouth to nibble on my nail.

  “No,” Charlie said. “It’s the opposite. You’re great because you don’t overly emote. You could be the next Barbara Walters or Diane Sawyer, but even better because you don’t contort your face into that TV pity look. You’re less saccharine.”

  “I think that might be your wine talking,” I said, flattered that Charlie thought I was already in the same league as the two titans of the teary interview art form, though I didn’t know what to make of his perception. This wasn’t the first time two viewers saw two completely different things in my facial expressions. Some viewers saw sympathy, or sadness, while others saw contempt and discomfort—all during the same interview. I was beginning to see my neutral “news face” as a Rorschach test.

  “I wish you could hear Benji talk,” I told him. “He’s inspiring.”

  “I’m sure he is,” Charlie said in a way that made me think he was not at all sure. “But look, I think Diggs is right about the time for objectivity being over. The media shouldn’t be focused on objectivity. It should be focused on truth.”

  I bit my lip. Was objectivity officially out the window? Professor Jordan popped up on my shoulder and wagged his finger at me. Not now, professor!

  “Anyway, I’m excited for you,” Charlie said, smiling at me. “I knew it was only a matter of time for you to make your mark.” He signaled for the check. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  “Yeah, I have a big day tomorrow. I have to tell Newschannel 13 that they won’t have Amanda Gallo to kick around anymore. Tomorrow I begin the transition from lowly local reporter to national news correspondent. I plan to become insufferable!”

  Charlie reached across the table for my hands. “Don’t change too much, okay? I love you just like this.”

  Chapter 5

  Jump Cut

  My new office at FAIR was on the sixteenth floor, aka “the talent floor.” It was a self-important, haughty term that I loved more than I should. No longer was I referred to as a “field reporter” as I had been in Roanoke and at Newschannel 13. Now I was “talent,” with all its glamorous and indispensable connotations. The sixteenth floor also housed a big pod of producers’ desks in the middle of a huge open space, surrounded by the anchors’ and reporters’ offices on all four sides. “Talent” offices had windows with natural light, and doors that shut and locked. Producers, on the other hand, had to toil in the public square, under fluorescent bulbs, unable to make personal calls or take a bite of their sandwiches in private.

  I liked walking around the sixteenth floor, reading the nameplates of other “talent,” particularly the famous anchors Benji Diggs had stolen from the competition. I’d peek into their offices as I passed. Some offices were tiny, smaller than a dorm room, with barely the space to cram a desk, chair, and clothing rack. Others were broad and handsome, with leather-bound books in custom-made shelves. It took me a few weeks to realize that office size directly correlated to contract size. Mine was small. But I liked it. I’d tacked some old snapshots onto a corkboard: me holding a microphone to a police officer’s mouth, me blindfolded for my ice cream taste test, and my now favorite shot—me, in my old red puffy parka standing in a snowbank, covering yet another blizzard. Ha! All yours, Jeff Davis!

  I loved my new reporting assignments, each one more interesting than the last, and each a fresh opportunity to show Benji how much I got the concept of what we were doing at FAIR.

  “Yes, yes!” Benji would say to the conference room filled with a dozen producers and reporters, pointing up to the huge screen on which one of my packages had just been projected.

  “This is exactly what I’m looking for,” he declared after screening my piece on the death penalty. “See what Amanda did here?” he asked the crowd. “She got that great interview with the cop’s daughter, who lost her dad and wants that scumbag murderer to get the electric chair. And so, you’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah, kill him!’ Then she interviews the Board of Prisons woman, who explains how much more the death penalty costs taxpayers, and you’re like, ‘Now hold on a second.’ Then she interviews that sociologist, who asks, ‘Why is the government murdering someone to prove how wrong it is to murder someone? How’s that civilized?’ And you’re like, ‘Hey, I never thought of that.’ See? All sides have a point.”

  Everyone would nod, like they always did when Benji spoke, though I feared that afterward they’d give me the hairy eyeball in the hallway. But they didn’t. They complimented my death penalty piece, and my piece on the automated cars that studies showed had fewer accidents but might be more dangerous because they were more prone to hacking. And of course, they really liked that perennial favorite I had reprised for FAIR News—the blindfolded taste test of the best peach ice cream in Montauk. That one was evergreen. I could stick it in the can until Memorial Day and it would still be a crowd-pleaser then.

  I didn’t think any of these pieces would
win me a Peabody, but my chances were better at FAIR than they’d ever been. And for the first time I felt like I might actually be in Laurie’s league of doing stories that got the attention of awards committees.

  Charlie took issue with a couple of my pieces, particularly the one I did on gun control. The angle was Hollywood celebrities who railed against guns while having round-the-clock armed guards to protect their own families. Charlie thought the answer was obvious: crack down on gun sales and you’d have less violence and less need for bodyguards. I argued that the story was about hypocrisy. A different set of rules for the elite. After our first official fight, he reluctantly conceded that maybe my angle had some merit, and a few days later he offered an olive branch in the form of a red T-shirt that said “Devil’s Advocate” across the front. I found the shirt way too corny to ever wear, until I realized that, paired with some hideous red spandex workout pants, a red headband with pointy ears attached, pumps, a pitchfork, and a sensible black blazer one might wear in a law firm, the “Devil’s Advocate” shirt made the perfect Halloween costume.

  I was so busy covering medical breakthroughs, technology innovations, and other human interest stories that some days I could almost forget that there was a surreal primary season under way. In late September, a couple of weeks after I arrived at FAIR, Victor Fluke threw his hat in the ring, figuratively and literally. In a made-for-TV event in Fort Worth, Texas, Fluke rode around a football stadium atop a bucking bronco, then with great fanfare tossed his old Sam Stockton cowboy hat into a ring of fire. I had to admit, it was awesome.

  “This is re-donk-u-lous,” Laurie said, as she, Charlie, and I stood in front of my TV screen, arms folded across our chests, watching the spectacle. Somehow Fluke managed to tame the bronco into an obedient mare in the space of a couple of minutes, then he dismounted and made his way to a microphone, chaps and all. He gave a salute to the crowd and launched into a malapropalooza of promises.