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Ivy League Ken showed Ben something on his phone.
“Some people are already questioning OVT’s credibility. But I think the best course of action here is to simply ignore them,” he said. Both of them carefully scoured the comments and tweets about the article that caused this crisis.
“At least Eric here is able to give some insight. Thank god someone came to work today.” Ben made sure that everyone could hear every single word. The rest of the employees in the room began to look at the ground in shame, shrinking as their president was fixing their mistakes for them. Meanwhile, I was still shifting in the corner, wishing I wasn’t in this newsroom. Why couldn’t I have wanted to do something else with my life?
“But it’s still your call, Ben,” Eric declared admirably, stepping away from the president.
“No. Ignoring it might be a good short-term solution, but it will come back to bite us in the future.” He walked over to a reporter’s computer and sat down in the chair. It was kind of weird to see the president of the network sitting at a desk like a regular person—although there was no way he looked like a regular person. In fairness, he seemed really dedicated to this company. It wasn’t every day the head honcho got so invested in personally fixing a mistake. Didn’t they usually just fire someone and make someone else clean up the mess? But he was actually willing to get his hands dirty.
“A good source will admit when they’re wrong and strive to be better, more meticulous,” Ben added, typing unbelievably fast on the computer. There was a sense of chivalry in his words, something that people didn’t quite get to see in recent history. It was certainly refreshing, but honestly, it just made him much more impressive.
Suddenly, the bank of monitors on the side wall of the newsroom lit up and started to display what he was doing. Ben was masterfully mapping out the steps for OVT’s next move. He opened up the content management system for OVT’s official website along with the back end screens for all social media accounts. On the other side, he had the design software opened where he was effortlessly creating an image to complement the posts about the company’s stance on the recent blunder.
Most of us understood what he was doing—Ben was literally doing everyone’s job in the newsroom in under ten minutes. What would likely have taken an hour of different people collaborating on different pieces, he did right in front of us without breaking a sweat. The words flowed from his fingertips, and came out concise, clear, and honestly, perfect.
“Wow,” I said under my breath, not being able to hide how impressed I was as he clicked publish on the website and social media accounts. Now he had the live social media feeds where we could see the numbers rapidly rising underneath each post—likes, comments, shares. He had a screen up showing real-time analytics on the website and a huge number of users were suddenly on the page he just created.
I covertly looked around to see if everyone was as taken aback as I was at how capable this man was, and all I found were stunned faces and dropped jaws.
Now this was quite the first day experience.
The spell in the newsroom was quickly broken and everyone went back to their desks to try to maintain the momentum that Ben had started.
Ben Oviatt stood up from the chair, buttoned his perfect-shade-of-gray suit jacket and glanced back at the monitors. His focus swung around the room, and his eyes locked on mine. For the millionth time in about ten minutes, I was stunned by the deep sea of green. His face remained completely neutral, but he didn’t move or walk away.
Ben
The life of someone in my position was never meant to be peaceful, especially inside the news industry. I always knew in the back of my head that this was still a business—a business that should be a harbinger of truth and facts, not of paid promotion, and most importantly, not one that added more fake news to the world. When Eric told me the situation, I had to jump in myself to fix things, even if it was a few steps below my paygrade. My decision pissed off the rest of the network executive leadership, but I had my ways of handling them.
“Remind me again, who's the boss?” I had asked all of them in the meeting room when the crisis broke out. Stunned silence filled the room. They knew the answer to the question and there wasn’t much they could do. Some of the executives in the room bathed in superiority, mostly because I was the youngest in the room. Ageism was prevalent, but I was self-assured enough to remind them who I was.
I wasn’t trying to overstep or be egotistical. I just didn’t see the problem with overseeing the solution. It was my name on the network banner. And if anything, a good leader was hands on and they actually knew how to do the work they were asking of other people. A great leader was able to solve any crisis. That was how I had made it in this business.
It was easy enough to say all of this inside my head, but that really wasn’t the reason I was down here in the newsroom right now. But it wasn’t the time to dwell. I had more pressing issues.
“Never in my years of running OVT Broadcasting Network, have I seen such a blunder so badly mishandled,” I said, keeping my voice low. The intimidation factor worked if the dedicated lack of eye contact from my employees was proof.
“We are here to tell the truth. And that especially includes when we make mistakes. Or has everyone forgotten the tagline of this company?”
I stared everyone down. I was sure they all assumed the question was rhetorical, but I wanted the answer.
“The harbingers of unequivocal truth.”Lucy stepped forward as her voice clearly rang out across the newsroom. She was a valuable senior reporter, and I’d thought she’d be the first to respond. She wasn’t known around here as someone who backed down from a challenge.
I nodded at her, respecting her nearly decade of service at this network.
“Thank you, Lucy. At least one of you can still remember.” I started for the exit. There wasn’t really anything else I could do after all of this. Our reputation was in the hands of the people, but I wasn’t really too worried. Truthfully, these things had a way of blowing over if it didn’t happen repeatedly.
As I walked through the room toward the exit, several employees mumbled apologies. This might be the experience that would really bring home the importance of being detail-oriented and always questioning everything—as a news outlet should. Before I walked through the door, I turned around again and scanned the crowd, my eyes landing on an unfamiliar face in the corner.
“You,” I said. I noticed as every pair of eyes snapped toward her. Were they grateful my attention was taken by someone else? Probably. The woman’s dark red hair flowed around her shoulders, moving slightly as she nervously shifted her weight from one foot to another. Her hazel eyes were filled with worry as I continued to stare her down. “I don’t know you. Why are you in my newsroom?” I cocked my head to the side as she started to look flustered, pink creeping up her skin, darkening the smattering of freckles.
“Um…I…Uh—My name is—Uh…” she stammered endlessly.
“You’re wasting my time,” I snapped.
Suddenly, the redhead regained all her composure. Her posture snapped upright, lengthening her entire body to its full height. She straightened her blazer and cleared her throat.
“My name is Olivia Taylor, sir. You don’t know me because today is my first day.” Her husky voice was firm as she locked her gaze on mine. Was she challenging me? Even Lucy didn’t glare at me this way.
