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Having already exchanged good-night messages with Tom, I was in bed, reading the dissertation by Mrs. P’s friend/mentor — my homework assignment as Tamantha noted — when Mike called.
The dissertation was slow going, being academic and written in an earlier, more formal style. Yet a hint of wry humor came through to me now and then. Or was that my imagination or wishful thinking?
“I’m still wrestling with whether to hire Octavia Zabel,” he said without preamble.
“Half an anchor in hand is worth one in the bush,” I said.
“Worth even more than none in the bush.” From that gloomy response, he bounced back immediately. “You’re right. I’m hiring her. Gets us at least a little farther along.”
“I was talking with Needham...”
I shared his idea about how we might benefit from the journalistic experience being jettisoned by newspapers.
He was quiet for a long moment, then said, “Our people already know how to put together a newscast. With an experienced anchor — or two — we’d cover more of the broadcast angles. A news director from a newspaper background could offer valuable journalistic experience... We’d still be sort of piecemeal, instead of the usual newsroom structure I’d hoped for.”
“When has KWMT ever been usual? You’re spoiled from being there in Chicago. Cast your mind back to working under the Haeburn-Fine regime,” I said, invoking the dread names of our former news director and anchor.
“Yeah. I get that. I was hoping to offer really top-notch folks for the mentoring, what you dubbed post-grad training.”
“So, we build more slowly. We take our piecemeal gains and we keep building on them. The reputation comes a bit more gradually. We’ll still get there.”
“It would mean a crash course in visual reporting for a newspaper hire.”
“Maybe not as much as it would have before having an online presence required newspapers to offer multimedia, too.”
“Good point.”
“We already thought we’d be teaching the young hires more about good video, with Diana as our secret weapon. We just expand the lessons to the news director.”
“I hate to take her off assignments.”
“Then don’t. Send new hires out with her. Have them shoot the B-roll. Let her talk through what she’s doing as she’s doing it. Most of them are multimedia types anyway. Let them do the reporting while also honing their visual skills with her.”
“Hmm. Are you going to talk to her?”
“We both will. Together.”
He seemed satisfied as we said good-night, but not chipper.
Me, either, as I returned to the dissertation.
DAY FOUR
FRIDAY
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I hadn’t intended to be early for my appointment with James Longbaugh because I’m not a fan of waiting.
But I ran out of time for another stop at the Sherman Supermarket beforehand. I had no specific goal for a trip through Penny’s lane, leaving my motivation low.
So, there I was in the tiny waiting area of the hundred-year-old converted house down a side street near the courthouse that had served Longbaugh lawyers for generations. The desk at the far end of the narrow room — positioned so its occupant could stretch out a leg and trip anyone who tried to rush James in his private office at the back — occupied by a young woman who did not appear like a leg-stretcher-tripper type.
Just then I heard — we both heard, judging by her lifted head — a raised male voice from the conference room on the other side of the wall from this waiting area.
