by Glenn Beck
“What’s wrong with the lowercase d on your machine?” Noah asked.
“It’s broken, that’s what’s wrong with it, and they’ve stopped making parts for the old girl.” Ira had gotten up from his chair and he spoke from near the credenza by the wall. He was carefully slipping a vinyl LP onto the spindle of an ancient record player. “Do you notice how nobody fixes anything anymore?”
Lana spoke up. “Do you notice how I’m going to stick my head in the oven and turn on the gas if I have to listen to Glenn Miller again today?”
“No, dear,” Ira said, “no big bands today.” The needle touched vinyl and soon a swell of smooth violins came drifting over the speakers, followed by the velvety tones of Nat King Cole. “Feast your jaded ears, young people. ‘Stardust’ is without any doubt the most beautiful song ever recorded by mortal man.”
Noah continued to read and make his marks as the music played on, and the girl raised no further objections as she worked away at her keyboard. When he came to a part near the end of the text he stopped and looked over at its author.
“You’re seriously going to submit this?” Noah asked.
“I can only write what I’m told these days,” Ira replied. “My only job is to write it well enough. What, you don’t believe what’s there?”
The paragraph in question was near the end of the story. Unnamed sources in the Justice Department had confirmed that members of a right-wing domestic hate group were claiming responsibility for the shooting that set off the violence at a Chicago protest march. A string of other incidents established an escalating pattern of terrorist activity, moving west across the country. Evidence found at the scene also pointed to the direct involvement of their suddenly notorious leadership. This group called themselves the Founders’ Keepers.
“No, I don’t believe it.”
“Oh, really?” Ira came back to his place and took a seat. “And why not?”
Noah didn’t answer. Instead he looked around briefly for any obvious cameras or listening devices.
“They aren’t watching us in here,” Ira said. “There are other indignities we have to endure”—he patted his ankle, where his own house-arrest bracelet would be—“but they’ve never bothered to spy on us in this room, not that way. Go on, you can speak freely.”
“Okay. I don’t believe the story because I know those people.”
“Oh, I know that you know them,” Ira said, “and I know more than that. I recognize you, too, Mr. Gardner.”
He frowned. “I’m sure we haven’t met before.”
The older man nodded with the hint of a smile, holding eye contact for a little longer than was entirely comfortable, and then he abruptly changed his heading. “Are you finished marking up my copy?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’m finished with it, too. I don’t need to see it again. Hand it over to my girl Friday there so she can type it up and send it out on the wires.”
As Noah leaned toward her and held out his minor edits, Lana clipped the papers from his hand without looking over and with barely a pause in her typing.
“You must have some questions about what goes on here,” Ira said.
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“Well, then, let me show you around a bit and I’ll fill you in.”
One wall was dominated by a huge flat-screen monitor. Noah’s father had kept a nearly identical device running constantly in his private conference room. Its ever-changing display was a patchwork mosaic of running videos, pictographs on hot topics, graphs of market movements, headlines, and scrolling news items. All the little blocks were in constant motion, organizing and reorganizing themselves. Top to bottom, left to right, the order reflected the trending importance of each item. This visual gauge of popular interests would be of critical importance to the hive-mind of the press-and-PR juggernaut as it worked to shape the public discourse to its own ends.
The rest of the space seemed like a standard modern newsroom, though like the other rooms down the hall it looked virtually deserted. With the exception of their three places all the desks were unoccupied.
“Where is everybody?” Noah asked.
“All of this,” Ira said as he gestured around them, “started as an experiment. The news would be created and supervised in places like this, managed from a central location, and then that approved content would be sent out for the people’s consumption. What it took them a long time to realize, though, was that they were wasting a lot of effort. It turned out they didn’t have to compel their messages by force. There was no need to trick the majority of today’s pack of so-called journalists to do and say what they wanted. All they really had to do was ask.”
Across the room but obviously within earshot, Lana Somin quietly put on a handmade tinfoil beret and continued her work without further comment.
Despite the girl’s obvious skepticism this was a lesson Noah’s father had taught him when he’d first begun to intern at Doyle & Merchant. A subservient press corps was one of the keys to power in the PR business. The same sickness had long ago infected politics: promises of access, reward, and advancement had become the primary driving forces for most reporters, especially the sharp and ambitious ones. Any pretense of truth-seeking was left by the wayside, stuck in the back of the briefcase with their diplomas, their pride, and their principles.
On the flip side, naturally, there was a swift punishment waiting for those who defied their industry’s corruption. By way of example, Ira Gershon explained his present situation.
His last position in the mainstream media, granted as a favor from a retiring network CEO, had been as the executive producer of a weekly local investigative news segment. His contract included total control over staff and content; apparently no one upstairs had expected much controversy from an aging icon on the verge of being put out to pasture. He’d immediately landed in hot water over a segment on the widespread use of a cancer-linked growth hormone in the American milk supply. The manufactured hormone was the cash-cow product—no pun intended—of a multinational biotech giant. This company had its fingers in more than enough pies to get whatever it wanted, especially from the media. They killed Ira’s story with nothing more than a threat to pull their advertising.
Needless to say, the problem wasn’t that the story was false. It never ran, Ira sued his employer, and the only outcome of the protracted lawsuit had been a landmark decision in American media. The court ultimately determined, once and for all, that bald-faced lies in the news were perfectly okay. Journalists had neither the inherent right nor any legal obligation to go on TV and tell the truth.
The story that finished off his waning career, though, had been a multipart series about the sinister origins of the debt crisis that was currently rocking the world. It was his magnum opus, the treasure at the end of a trail he’d been following since the 1970s. The piece was well researched, carefully vetted, and it centered on a shadowy financier and economic plunderer named Aaron Doyle.
“Aaron Doyle,” Noah said. “He was a principal at my father’s company.”
“Was?”
“Yeah, was. I met him a few times when I was a kid. He was old as dirt back then; he can’t possibly still be around.”
Ira Gershon sat thoughtfully for a moment.
“Noah,” he said, “do you believe in God?”
“There he goes again,” Lana sighed, from her desk several feet away.
“I don’t know. Not really, I guess. Why?”
“Because I first met Aaron Doyle when I was a kid, too. He was old as dirt even then. And once you’ve seen the devil, son, trust me, it really helps if you believe in God.”
Chapter 29
Noah felt worn to the nub by the end of his first workday, but though it was hard to admit, overall it hadn’t been so bad.
This mix of feelings had been familiar in his old life in civilian PR. It was rewarding on some level to have spent eight solid hours on tasks he was very good at accomplishing, regardless
of who he was doing it for or why they wanted it. A lot of people spend their days that way, he reminded himself, gritting their teeth at times to support someone else’s agenda just so they can devote whatever free time they have left toward their own pursuits.
This new apartment, too, was a definite upgrade from the stark cell where he’d been housed during his previous sentence. His place was on the floor just under the penthouse levels and it seemed like any random executive suite at an extended-stay hotel. The furnishings, the art on the walls, the fabrics, paint, and carpeting were all of the sort that everyone could get used to and no one would particularly hate. It wasn’t a home you were meant to make your own; it was simply an inoffensive and comfortable place to stay, and he’d stayed in much worse.
As Ira had explained it earlier, the lower floors and some subterranean levels of the building comprised housing for the less privileged residents and a number of actual prisoners, political and otherwise. Their presence below you was meant as a reminder of the blessings you’d been granted, and the ease with which you could lose what you thought you were entitled to.
In the course of the day Ira had also told Noah how it was that he and Lana—two supposed rebels against the corrupt establishment—were seemingly helping the very forces they should hate. Some local activist attorney had gotten wind of Lana’s age and situation, and before he could be bought off he’d come in and arranged for Ira Gershon to become her legal guardian. After that, as much as the men in charge would have loved to lock them both up and throw away the key, in exchange for their promise to cooperate they were granted a spot in limbo until the very minute she would turn seventeen.
As Noah approached the refrigerator, a screen set into the door lit up to inform him of the time and date, the weather, the indoor temperature, and his own full name. The appliance also informed him that Noah W Gardner, #078-05-1120, was almost out of nonfat milk. It further said that his dairy quota for the week had not yet been exceeded, and so if he touched YES a delivery order for a half gallon would be sent to the nearby market.
Creepy, but convenient.
He’d just picked out a meal tray from a stack in the freezer when, across the suite, a pretty woman in a bathrobe appeared at his bedroom door, drying her hair with a towel. He tried once to blink her away but she stayed right where she was, and then he recognized her. As much as the artificial nature of her left leg, it was that somewhat enigmatic smile that he remembered most clearly about Virginia Ward.
“Hi again,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I let myself in.”
“No, not at all.”
“My flight landed early and I needed to go over some things with you, and while I was waiting I thought I’d freshen up.”
“Really, it’s fine. I don’t exactly feel like I’m alone in this place anyway, if you know what I mean.” He held up the frozen-food tray in his hand. “Would you like some delicious low-sodium, gluten-free dinner?”
“That would actually be pretty good. I forgot to eat much today.” She finished with her towel, ran her fingers through her hair a couple of times, and somehow ended up looking like she’d just spent half an hour in front of the mirror. “This is a nice place you’ve got.”
“Do I have it, or does it have me?”
“You really shouldn’t complain, if you think about it.”
“I know. My father must have laid on the pressure, for the job and to land this place for me. I’m still not sure why he did that, but no, I’m not complaining.”
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “You put dinner in the microwave, I’ll get dressed, and we’ll get started on what we need to do, okay?”
“Good.”
She returned just as the oven beeped to indicate their food was finished. He pulled out a chair for her but she chose another, one facing the door.
They talked as they ate, a little about Molly, but mostly about other things. As they reached their bland dessert Virginia asked him about his new job.
“It’s strange,” Noah said. “There are only three of us: me, an elderly man, and a young woman. Just a girl, really.”
“What do you do, the three of you?”
“That’s the strange part. It’s busywork, mostly, although I did sharpen up some talking points for the White House press secretary in the afternoon. I feel sorry for this poor guy they’ve got in there now; it’s like they’re not even trying anymore.”
“And what about the other two, your new colleagues?”
“The old fellow used to be on the news but it sounds like he didn’t change with the industry, and so the industry pushed him out.”
Virginia smiled. “Way out, by the look of it.”
“Yeah, to hear him tell it he’s made some powerful enemies, probably like everyone else here on our side of the bars. Whoever’s running this show, they give him about one story a week to write, and that’s probably just so they can keep an eye on him and make sure he’s toeing the line. He spends the rest of his time writing fillers for syndication.”
“Fillers?”
“Little blurbs to finish out a short column on the back pages of the paper. News people use them, too, and disc jockeys. Those random anecdotes you hear sometimes, ‘did you know?’–type items, fascinating facts, stuff like that.”
“What about the girl?”
“Lana doesn’t say much but she’s got some real talent. She mostly works at stirring up trouble on the blogs, starting comment wars on social news sites, that sort of thing.”
“What’s the value of that?”
“Are you kidding? These days it’s enormously valuable. With everyone so connected it’s the best place to mess with public opinion. Even though it’s all anonymous, people seem to think they’re just talking to a group of friends. Probably nine out of ten of the user comments you read on some of those sites are bought and paid for like that.”
“Nine out of ten?”
“Sometimes ninety-nine out of a hundred, and I’m not even exaggerating.”
“And all these fake opinions accomplish what?”
“Come on, you know better than I do. The CIA spends eighty-five percent of its budget on psychological manipulation.”
“I’ve always managed to keep myself in the better fifteen percent.”
“Here’s the basic idea. You take an issue, present a strong and reasonable argument for both sides of the question, and then you proceed to belittle anyone who falls outside the two groups. Do that, and you’ve done a couple of things. First, you’ve divided a lot of the readers cleanly into two controllable factions, and implanted an easy-to-digest opinion that they’ll repeat: liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, whatever. Second, you’ve made it seem to the undecided majority that there’s really no right answer, no real choice. You make them feel like outsiders who don’t belong, and that makes them more likely to shut up and stay at home drowning their sorrows on election day. You make thinking for yourself seem uncool and socially unacceptable, and nobody wants to be part of that.”
“So that’s all she does all day? She writes fake comments?”
“You make it sound easy but it really takes a lot of finesse to do it right. I looked over her shoulder once today and she was actually in a full-out argument with herself. Both sides had thousands of up-votes from the onlookers. Her real specialty is Trotskying, though.”
“Trotskying? And what’s that?”
“It’s the visual form of content-scrubbing. She downloads photographs and videos from the archives, removes or changes things in Photoshop and other tools, and then she re-uploads the new material. It’s what Lenin did to Trotsky after they had a falling-out; he tried to erase him from history, that’s how the practice got its name. Only it’s much faster now, and a lot more permanent.”
“And that works?”
“She single-handedly helped the press squeeze a third-party presidential candidate out of the race over the last few months. He was actually getting popular for a while,
raising some sticky issues for the front-runners, and now it’s like he was never even there.”
“There are so many channels available,” Virginia said, “so many radio stations and newspapers and magazines. It just seems like it should be harder to control what we’re seeing than you make it sound.”
“It should be, but it’s not. You’ve got to remember, only six corporations control almost all of the media outlets today. It was about ninety companies when I was born, now it’s six. They don’t have to corral three hundred million viewers, just three hundred executives, and they were all in my old Rolodex when I worked in New York. And it’s not getting any better. Rumor has it, up at the very top the ownership’s being consolidated down to only one.”
As the meal continued the conversation shifted, thankfully, to topics other than his work. The interaction seemed genuinely friendly; Noah never got the feeling that she was working him like an informant, though in her own charming way she obviously was. In any case he felt comfortable with her, and he needed that.
“Do I know you well enough now to ask you how you lost your leg?”
“In the war,” she replied, not bothering to tell him which one. “I was on my seventh tour, we were on our way back from a major engagement in Sadr City, an incredible meat grinder. It was street fighting, no time to think or plan, both sides just going at it for days. When it was over my detachment got out with no casualties; it was like a miracle, no one had a scratch. Then the convoy got hit by a string of IEDs on the road back to the base. We lost five, and that’s how I lost my leg.”
“Seven tours,” he said. “Was that by choice?”
She nodded.
“Why did you keep going back?”
“Because my brothers and sisters were there, and we all took the same oath, and I couldn’t see leaving them until the job was done.” She seemed to become more thoughtful, as though her answer had left something important unexplained. “War is a terrible thing, but once we’ve made the careful and honest decision to send our volunteers out into it, once we’ve committed the blood of the best of us, we need to give them a clear goal and the full permission to win. And then when they’ve done that, we need to bring them on home.”
