“You could say that,” Bodie said. “One semester of being her personal servant has just about killed my desire to go into the news business.”
“As bad as that?”
“Worse,” she assured him. “I had this completely idealistic conception of what journalism was like. You know, the whole Fourth Estate thing.”
Leif must have looked puzzled, because she said, “You know, the press as the ‘Fourth Estate.’ Being European, you must know about the Three Estates of the Realm, right? The Three Estates were the basis of feudal society — the Lords Spiritual, or the Church; the Lords Temporal, or the nobility; and the bourgeoisie, or the common folk.”
Actually, Leif had learned about that in his history class. He’d forgotten it as soon as it was convenient, as he did much of the information that he learned in school and considered extraneous. Who’d have guessed he’d have a need for that little tidbit? But now he nodded. He remembered enough to get by.
“Well, a couple of hundred years ago, as the press came to have more of an influence on society, journalism was jokingly referred to as a new political force — the Fourth Estate. Then it turned out not to be a joke. By the late twentieth century, newspapers and television had actually helped to unseat one sitting president, and got fairly close to unseating another. Even today, when they get really stuffy and serious, media people like to talk about their responsibility to the public. ‘The news sets the agenda,’ they say, as if that were a good thing.”
“But you began to have your doubts,” Leif said.
“To put it mildly,” Bodie retorted. “I didn’t see anybody in HoloNews carrying the sacred flame. The place is a for-profit business, worse than most of the offices you see in the holos, with all the nastiest parts of Hollywood thrown in.”
She shook her head. “I’ve seen serious stories, mine and everyone else’s, pushed aside to make room for coverage of some stupid actor getting caught with his pants down. Other stories I broke got spiked — ignored — because they didn’t suit the great Tori Rush’s personal agenda. And even when I did get my hands on a hot story, something that was ripe for the headlines, I was just a grunt, the lowest level of employee. I’d do all the work to develop a story, only to see the news diva get the credit. Nobody at the station was ever told how Tori got her hands on the information.”
Her full lips twisted. “It was enough to make me sick. Sure knocked all my high ideals about a free press defending democracy right out of my head. A guy named A. J. Liebling had it right: ‘A free press is guaranteed only to those who own one.’”
“Tori Rush is that bad?” Leif asked, hoping for some dirt.
“She’d stab you in the back just to get a convenient opening in which to view the time of day,” Bodie said. “I’m an intern. I know what goes into the job. I could live with her stealing the credit for all the work I did, and giving me all her work to do on top of it, but then she’d send me out to deal with her dirty laundry and her shopping and her lunches and her bills.”
“But if you were handling most of her work and her personal responsibilities, what was she doing?”
Bodie glanced around, then her voice became conspiratorial. She wasn’t exactly whispering — who could, with that wailing music in the background? But she lowered her voice and moved her lips closer to Leif’s ears. “She’s working on setting up her own show.”
Leif looked surprised. “But she’s the ‘fresh new face’ on Once Around the Clock. She’s only been there a couple of years. Is she really such a star that the network would let her do that?”
“She thinks she’s got the demographics,” Bodie said. “There was a time when even the best newsmen — or — women — needed a decade at the top before they’d get a shot at their own interview show. They had to stand out from the rest of the team on the magazine shows just to get a slot hosting those early-morning extravaganzas that start at six A.M. On Sundays they had to come up with probing questions for newsmakers on those panel-interview shows. But Tori-baby isn’t interested in actual work, just the perks that come with the job. She figures she can push her status as America’s Sweetheart to get what she wants — money and fame — right now.”
Bodie looked truly disgusted. “She spends more time on the phone with her agent, crafting the latest ultimatum to the network, than she does checking sources for her stories, even the stuff she’s purloined. Have you noticed that all the news she’s broken lately has been big scandals? Accusations that make headlines, even if they don’t stick? That’s ’cause they’re easy for her to do. She’s got a source even the network doesn’t know about. And those stories give her a high profile while she does development deals for her show. You ready for this? She wants to call it The Rush Hour.”
Leif shrugged. “Aim high,” he said.
“But to get there, she’s willing to go really low.” Bodie hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “I shouldn’t really say this—”
Leif leaned a little closer, but she clammed up again.
“Ah,” he said, “this is — what do you call it? — the teaser?”
Stung, she swallowed the rest of her drink and glared at him. “Unlike some sources, I come through. The story will be out soon enough, and I’m quoted in it. Tori, the great news diva, has hired her own private eyes to dig up dirt for her. How’s that for investigative reporting?”
“Detectives?” Leif said in disbelief.
“No shinola, Sherlock. After her agent, the people Tori-babe called most were her professional peepers at I-on Investigations. They were supposed to give her ‘background reports.’”
Bodie’s lips curled in disgust. “But her highness just prettied them up into news scripts, didn’t even bother checking the facts or verifying the stories with multiple sources. I should know. She had me writing up the scripts while she took credit for her ‘investigative journalism.’”
“It sounds…irresponsible,” Leif said, hoping to get more.
“That’s the name of the game when you’re playing muckraker. Tori wanted and needed a good scandal to make points with the bigwigs. That story about the world-champion pitcher with three wives and three families? That was done based on an I-on report and my scriptwriting. Same thing with that report on the corporate president accused of looting his company’s assets.”
Leif remembered that one. His father complained that the story had been an unpleasant sandwich — a little bit of truth stuck loosely between thick slices of baloney. The actual dealings the corporate head had approved were perfectly reasonable and legal — but had been cast in an evil light by hysterical reporting, with the usual damaging results for the corporate head. By the time he’d managed to prove his innocence, nobody was listening and the damage to his career and the company had been done.
“Right now Tori’s convinced she’s latched on to something really good with this story about the Net Force guy killing that gangster,” Bodie interrupted Leif’s thoughts. “It’s got everything — dead innocents, Mafia kingpins, and a great unlikely villain. She’s been on the line with her connection at I-on for most of this week, screaming for more dirt.”
“And if there is no dirt?” Leif asked.
“Don’t be naive,” Bodie told him. “Nobody is such a saint that they haven’t done something. That Winters guy is history. By the time Tori gets done with the facts, people will be screaming to hang the poor guy.”
“Too bad that can’t be done to Ms. Rush.” Leif had to fight to keep his tone light.