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Now, when I was approaching fifteen years running OVT, I was faced with my biggest obstacle yet.
“Jebediah Olson has been relentlessly branding us as fake news for the past eight hours.” John, one of the board members pointed out, panic filling his voice. “I don’t mean to be fear-mongering, but having one of the leading presidential candidates publicly tarnishing our reputation is something we have to take action on immediately.”
I never liked John. All he ever really did was repeat what the problem was over and over and never offered any type of solution. Unfortunately, he was still a stakeholder, and he had every right to be here.
“Where is the reporter that published this story?” John always liked things to happen in a flash, not caring if the newsroom was in an adjacent connected building and the executive floor was on the top floor. He wasn’t really much help, either—just a lot of talk and hot air. That was what most of them did, actually. They really liked to talk and talk and talk. It was evident to me that they weren’t here for their love of journalism or their passion for truth. Money made the world go round, after all.
Thankfully, Eric came striding in, Lucy and Olivia behind him. At least it got everyone to shut up for a second.
My eyes landed immediately on Olivia. It was the first time I had seen her since our flight back to New York. Admittedly, I would have loved to spend some more time at the ski resort, but my responsibilities always restricted my free time. I appreciated she showed me a new perspective on what I was doing with my life, but I knew it couldn’t change that quickly, especially during campaign season.
“Got here as soon as I could, Ben,” Eric said calmly, sitting down on the chair on my right. Lucy and Olivia took the two open seats toward the other end of the table, confused what they were doing here. I couldn’t blame them, of course.
I glanced toward Olivia for a few seconds, and I could tell that she was anxious about what was going on. Taking a deep breath, I stood up from my seat at the head of the table and walked around the room. I never liked this meeting room, as it was my father’s before it was mine. We had a lot of unpleasant conversations in this space, and though the classic wood finish of the interior was beautiful, I still wasn’t very fond of it.
“Thank you for joining us on such short notice,” I started, nodding solemnly at Lucy and Olivia. “I’m sure you must be wondering why we’ve called you up here.”
The worst part about being in charge was being the bearer of bad news. I hated it. But some things needed to be done, because it wasn’t fair to keep this from my employees any longer.
“It has come to our most recent calculations that OVT Broadcasting Network is now bleeding cash,” I finally revealed, earning a shocked gasp from several people in the room, including some of the board members.
“What!?” one of them, Angela, said, appalled.
“How?” Sam bellowed out, enraged. Meanwhile, the reporters just quietly reacted, while worry quickly filled both of their eyes. Probably still confused about what this actually had to do with either of them.
Eric then cleared his throat, filling in for me.
“OVT Broadcasting Network has now been caught up by the streaming era of viewership. Though we had transitioned into making a majority of our news available online, we are now simply living in the shadows of the other bigger networks.”
“But what about our recent spike in viewership thanks to that new girl!?” Angela grilled. “Thishasto be a joke!”
Unable to control myself, I placed a very firm fist against the table, silencing everyone in the room. It wasn’t a violent smack to the wood, but it was enough to make a statement.
“I brought this company out of the shadows of these other bigger networks since I started working here, and I have worked tirelessly to bring it out again,” I said, voice unyielding as I looked at every single one of the board members with a hardened gaze. “I made myself, the President, hands-on with every single report. I ran through every single story, every edit, every revision, and I made sure thatall of itwas within my standards.”
The reporters suddenly had realization flash through their eyes as they finally pieced the situation together. I could especially see it on Lucy’s face, knowing that I wasn’t this involved in the newsroom before this year.
“And youdareclaim that what I told all of you was simply a joke?” I countered, and Angela shrank away from the table. I let out a sigh, and continued, “But there’s currently more pressing matters at hand.”
On cue, Eric played a video on the monitor in the room, revealing none other than Presidential Candidate Jebediah Olson in one of his campaign rallies.
“OVT has claimed that I, a man of good faith, have performed unheroic acts. They specified in their articles that during my time as Secretary of Defense, I sold weapons to our enemies. These are lies.”
The recording of Olson played, and thousands of supporters present at his rally all unanimously booed.
“Well, dare I say that I fortified this great nation by providing only the best manpower money could buy! And OVT Broadcasting Network, with their political bias and fake news, attempts to tarnish all of my hard work! Well, next time you have a terrorist break into your home, don’t come to me!”Olson continued, earning even more roaring screams from the audience.“If you want fake news outlets like OVT Broadcasting Network shut down for good with their devilish lies, then vote for me as your next President!”
The screaming was so loud that it went over our normal frequency and the meeting room speakers couldn’t handle it anymore.
A stunned silence fell in the room, and again, I couldn’t blame them for not knowing what to say. As we were gathered, every single social media outlet of OVT had been receiving nothing but threats and angry comments. Our television viewership had been cut by around forty percent. Every single story we published so far was getting nothing but comments that claimed that every single word was fake news. Even Olivia’s feature pieces were getting bombed with the same comments. Some sponsors pulled out of our advertising slots, and some exclusive interviews had backed out of appearing in any of our talk shows.
My eyes landed on Olivia once more, and I saw the horror in her eyes as she continued to stare at the frozen frame of Jebediah Olson. I would understand, because Olson was none other than the person Olivia worked for as a press release writer.
It was safe to say that OVT Broadcasting Network was now a crashing plane, and if we didn’t do anything about it soon, we were all going to go up in flames.
Chapter 16
Olivia
