Anna Pitoniak - Necessary People

“Yeah, but we’re spending that money on other things. Education. Social Security. The NIH. Isn’t it kind of a good thing?”

Jamie sighed. His father had been a naval officer, and his older brother worked for the Air Force JAG. Several of his hometown friends had joined up after high school. Jamie had naturally gravitated toward covering the Department of Defense, and in a newsroom where few of the producers had connections to the military, he didn’t have any competition. “It’s more complicated than that,” he said. “But long story short, there’s not gonna be a whole lot of news coming out of the Pentagon in the next few years.”

He stared idly into the distance, swiveling his desk chair back and forth. “My mom was always saying I should go to medical school,” he said. “I could have been a doctor by now. I’d make a good doctor, right?”

“You talk too much,” I said. “You’d annoy the patients.”

He laughed and pushed his foot against my chair. I’d had chances to move to better desks, those closer to the water fountain or with more sunlight, but I liked sitting next to Jamie. He was so calm. His self-possession, I suspected, came from the fact that he loved this job. All of it, from breaking a big story to writing the perfect chyron. This was his place in the world.

“Jamie!” Eliza called, as she walked over. “Just heard. We got the interview with the football player. His people confirmed for Thursday morning.”

“Whoa,” he said, sitting up straight. “What did the trick?”

“Rebecca worked her usual persuasive charm.”

“And Mr. King’s not going to mind? Given that he’s friends with the commissioner?”

Eliza half smiled, half smirked. “Fuck ’em. Ginny’ll take the heat if need be.”

“That’s huge. God, what a relief.”

“I know. I really wasn’t looking forward to another Community Cares segment.” She rolled her eyes, then she noticed me. “You didn’t hear that, Violet.”

I cocked my head. “Didn’t hear what?”

“Good girl.”

Increasingly, I had the sense that she liked me, but Eliza remained an enigma. She was the type of person who, while sharing an elevator, was perfectly comfortable staying silent. Whereas Rebecca would fill that time with a torrent of conversation, bathing you with her relentless attention.

But this didn’t mean Rebecca was always warm and fuzzy. More than once she’d snapped at a producer, loud enough for the whole newsroom to hear: “Would you get to the point! ” Or the night when the teleprompter was malfunctioning, and the rundown had changed at the last minute, and with sixty seconds to air Rebecca still didn’t know what the lead story in the A block was. When we went to the first commercial break, her face changed from professional warmth to pure rage. “This is my ass on the line, people,” she said. “Do you understand that? When we fuck up, I’m the one whose face gets plastered all over the internet. I get blamed. I look like a goddamn idiot because you don’t have your shit together.”

Eliza calmed her down that night, as she always did. It was obvious from the beginning that Eliza was an excellent journalist, but what took longer to reveal itself was her diplomacy. It didn’t matter how nasty a situation got. She was smooth and reassuring in the face of disaster. But Eliza’s diplomacy, like Rebecca’s famous generosity, was not an end in itself. At the root of every behavior, you could find a seed of self-interest.

“She and Rebecca are a package deal,” Jamie explained once. “They bring out the best in each other. You put Rebecca with a different producer, or Eliza with a different anchor, and you just don’t have the same magic.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Which is good, right? That makes them untouchable.”

“As long as you keep the peace,” Jamie said. “Rebecca’s temper is the X factor. A newsroom stays loyal to an anchor until it doesn’t. The people who light you, who mic you, who do your hair and makeup, who prep the guests—if you really piss them off, sabotage is easy.”

“So Eliza needs to make sure Rebecca doesn’t alienate everyone?”

“Because if they bring Rebecca down, Eliza goes with her. See?”

I nodded. “Makes sense to me.”

Jamie furrowed his brow. “You don’t seem bothered by how Machiavellian it is.”

“It’s not Machiavellian,” I said. “It’s just survival.”

We were running wall-to-wall promos for the interview. He was a retired football player who planned to speak out on the NFL’s long-term cover-up of brain damage. In addition to being a Hall of Famer, he was the stoic and silent type. When he spoke, people listened.

Rebecca and Eliza returned to the newsroom around lunchtime on Thursday, after taping the interview. They stood outside Rebecca’s office, conferring. The interview must have gone well. If Rebecca was listening this carefully, it meant she was in a good mood.

Rebecca and Eliza spent most of the day in the edit room. After a few hours, Eliza opened the door and stuck her head out. “Jamie!” she yelled. “Come eyeball this for me.”

Half an hour later, Jamie returned, looked subdued.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “I guess I don’t need to ask.”

He sighed. “It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. We’ve got him saying some incendiary stuff. He has proof that officials ignored the data. But it just feels… flat. Lifeless.”

“It probably doesn’t help that he’s so serious.”

Jamie shook his head. “No, it’s not that. He’s good on camera. He’s got gravitas. But after the segment’s over, you’re kind of left thinking—so what?”

“Yikes.”

“I know. It needs something.”

I drummed my fingers. “It’s hideous, when you think about it.”

“I agree,” Jamie said.

“I mean, children are at risk. Children with young, developing brains. How many teenagers play football in this country? Doesn’t Rebecca’s son play?”

Jamie had been spinning back and forth in his chair, which he always did while mulling, but he stopped. “Yes. Exactly,” he said. He jumped to his feet. “Come with me.”

Rebecca and Eliza were in the edit room, standing behind a hassled-looking woman. Eliza was probably itching to grab the controls, but union rules meant that only an editor could do this work. The editors tended to be older and grumpier, and they didn’t always appreciate fresh-faced producers coming into the room with a segment to crash. I was scared of this particular woman: she was a chain-smoker from Staten Island who sometimes reminded me of my mother. She did the work well, but with a maximum of grumbling. But with Rebecca and Eliza in the room, she was silent and deferential.

“Yes?” Eliza said, with a look of this had better be important.

Jamie pushed me forward. “Tell them what you just told me.”

“About how many teenagers play football?” I said, and Jamie nodded. I took a deep breath. “I was just saying how outrageous it is. That there are children at risk, whose brains are still developing. If they’d known this sooner, parents might have thought twice about letting their kids play football. Even your son, Rebecca. Doesn’t he play football?”

Jamie snapped his fingers. “That’s the lead-in. Right there. That’s the frame for this whole story.”

“It’s a public health risk.” Rebecca nodded slowly. “It’s about our children. Shit. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“It’s a question every mother has to ask herself,” Eliza said. “Knowing what I know, am I willing to let my child do this? Jamie, this is really good.”

“It was all Violet.”

“ Violet, ” Eliza said, grabbing my forearm. “Nice work. Can you chase down the up-to-date stats on how many kids play? Anything you can find on concussions, too.”