Anna Pitoniak - Necessary People

“Let’s go into Eliza’s office,” Jamie said. “She’ll want to explain it herself.”

When I didn’t follow them, Stella said, “Aren’t you coming?”

“Some stuff I need to catch up on,” I said, my jaw clenched tight.

Jamie paused for a moment, looking back at me. He knew exactly how much this was crushing me. He also knew how pointless it was to fight their decision. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed, his eyes sympathetic.

When Stella emerged from Eliza’s office a few minutes later, she was grinning from ear to ear. “Holy shit,” she said. “Violet. Holy shit. You heard, right?”

“Can I talk to you?” I took her hand and dragged her toward the kitchenette. This was my last-ditch attempt. If I couldn’t stop this from happening, Stella still could. I jabbed at some buttons on the coffee machine, hoping the noise of it would cover our conversation.

“You can’t do it,” I said. “Please.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The interview. Say no. Say you’re not comfortable with it.”

“Are you insane? This is, like, career-making. This is my big break.”

“This is supposed to be my big break,” I said. “It’s my story.”

“It’s not your story. It’s KCN’s story.” Stella put her hands on her hips. “You should know that, Violet. And this is very selfish of you. Why aren’t you happy for me?”

“Because you’re going to get all of the credit,” I said, my voice splintering.

What was I hoping for? If she wasn’t going to change her mind, at least I wanted her to admit to the unfairness. She would have done that, in the past. I know this sucks. I wish it hadn’t worked out this way. The words running through my head were too pathetic to say out loud: You’re my friend, Stella. You’re supposed to love me. What happened to us?

She smirked. “Well, I’m the one who landed us this interview, right?”

The interview was scheduled for 2 p.m. the next day, giving us just enough time to cut the tape and edit the package before broadcast. I knew the story better than anyone, so it was my job to brief Stella ahead of the interview. As the night went on, the newsroom emptied. Eventually it was only the guy at the overnight desk and us in the conference room, papers and coffee cups scattered across the table.

“Say that one more time,” Stella said, around 3 a.m.

“Danner’s market cap increased to $150 billion last year.”

“Wait, slow down. Market cap? What’s that?”

I was tempted to slam my forehead against the table. It was like that all night: stop, start, stop. Either Stella was being extra diligent, or she was in way over her head. And which scenario was worse? That she blew the interview and the story along with it—or that she nailed it?

The next morning, Stella had a rack of clothing wheeled into her office. She enlisted Ginny’s help in selecting the right outfit: she had to look authoritative and tough, but not too tough, because she also had to be a stand-in for the regular viewer at home. Ginny, president of KCN, undoubtedly had more important things to do than parse wrap dresses and cap sleeves. But she didn’t seem to mind. As Stella held up options, pressing them against her torso, Ginny’s affectionate gaze was like a scene from a gauzy movie: a mother watching her daughter trying on wedding dresses, the big day on the horizon.

“Let’s never forget,” Jamie said. “We’re the real story, not them.”

“Huh?” I’d been staring through the frosted glass walls of Stella’s office.

“How is it possible you’ve never seen Broadcast News ?”

I shook my head. “Sorry. I’m spacing out.”

“You don’t want that,” Jamie said, nodding in Stella’s direction. “It’s a shitty bargain. The second you appear on camera, you’ve got a giant target painted on your back. That’s why they’re all so insecure, you know. They know people are gunning for them to screw up.”

“It’s not like I wanted the interview for myself,” I said. “I just don’t want her to have it.”

“You have to let it go,” he said. “This is too important for that.”

I had heard it said that there were only so many stories in the world. That everything could be distilled to an archetype. The hero embarks on a journey. Boy meets girl. The fatal flaw leads to tragedy. I wondered about the truth of this. Did every story follow these patterns because there were, in the end, only so many paths that human behavior could take? Or was it that the storytellers were responding to the demands of the audience?

See, the demands were obvious to us—we knew exactly what people liked to watch, and what they didn’t. The ratings bore that out, every single week. The audience liked clean takeaways. They liked black-and-white, heroes and villains. They liked the truth, but only kind of; they liked the truth packaged in a way to make them feel better about their own lives. Too much murkiness, and they are reminded of their own murk: their own mistakes, their own shortcomings, the times they, too, misbehaved and mistreated others. Those stories didn’t rate well. If you wanted people to watch, if you wanted to win the demo and get the blockbuster numbers that your bosses demanded, you needed a story with a good ending.

And Stella had delivered that. Jamie field-produced the interview, and after several hours in the edit room, he emerged looking exhausted but relieved. “It’s good,” he said. “I was worried we’d have to redo the entire package, but the interview slots in neatly. It works.”

“Nice job, guys,” Eliza said, as she walked past. “I just watched it. It’s almost like that interview was exactly what the story was missing.” She tapped her watch. “Ten minutes till show time.”

The second half hour of the broadcast was devoted to the Danner story. It was my name and Jamie’s name that appeared after “Produced by” in the corner of the screen, and it was Rebecca’s voice that narrated over the B-roll. But it was when Stella and the CEO appeared on-screen that the energy changed. Everyone in the newsroom stopped talking and typing. They stared at the TV, rapt with attention.

Whatever that thing is, I had once said to Jamie, I know I don’t have it.

Stella asked the questions in a stern but fair-minded way, her head tilted at a thoughtful angle. The CEO leaned forward, contrite pain on his face. “Look,” he said, “I’m the father of two beautiful teenage girls. They are the strongest, smartest people I know.” It was a horribly hackneyed line, but when I glanced around the room, no one else was rolling their eyes. “Violence against women demeans all of our sisters and wives and daughters,” he continued. “The thought of it, frankly, makes me sick to my stomach. We will do everything in our power to prevent it from ever happening again. Not just in our industry, but in any industry.”

The other parts of the segment—the interviews with George and Willow, footage of the hotel with Rebecca’s voice-over describing the assault—had been significantly reduced to make room for Stella’s interview. My stomach sank as it went on. The whole tenor of the story changed. Sin, repent, repeat. It was the most basic kind of story, the kind the audience loved most. The interview was what everyone would talk about the next day—not Willow, not the other girls. They wouldn’t be remembered for more than a few minutes.

Stella pressed the CEO just enough to deliver some sizzle. “But how could you let this happen?” she said. “You’re in charge. Doesn’t the buck stop with you?” I blinked, feeling hot tears in my eyes. The meager territory I had claimed as my own, the little patch of land free from Stella Bradley’s shadow—it was gone, invaded, colonized. Our friendship only worked when we had our own turf. But now Stella had discovered the thrill of a big story. The appeal of the nice guy at the next desk over. I would never get these things back, not with her around.