The Journalist

by Dan Newman

  He stops and gathers himself. “I’m sorry. I know this is probably very odd, and perhaps a little disturbing for you, but you’re part of Chloe’s…” He struggles to find the word, then: “Experience.” He drains his glass for the second time. “You were there at the end, when I couldn’t be. And again, I know this sounds like madness, but you’re connected to her in a way that just feels important.” He looks up into my eyes and there’s pleading there, but for what, I don’t think even Dysart knows.

  “Mr. Dysart, I don’t understand it, but I do get it.”

  And so we talk some more, about Chloe, about what happened. He asks many of the same questions he did two years ago, and he asks them again and again, worded differently each time, hoping to find something new, something to feed the pit. And in the end there’s only one thing I say that seems to bring him any comfort at all.

  No, I say. She wasn’t frightened, I say. And Dysart offers a painful smile below eyes lined with tears that are not allowed to fall.

  It is truly a reprehensible moment for me, one that I think can drag me no lower—until he places his hand on my shoulder and says, “Thank you.”

  36

  Four days later my life begins anew at USBN.

  There are no strained relationships to manage in chance hallway encounters, no awkward smiles and hollow how are yous. There’s no impending threat of professional violence from the resident hotshot, and no accusing glances from staffers passed over that imply we all know how you got the job, asshole.

  Gordon Stewart’s crew moves quickly, and by the end of my first week I’ve spent over twenty hours in front of the camera, reporting whatever comes over the wire and then dissecting my performance with my producer, Phil Sudbury. Phil is direct and unapologetic, and critiques me with a bluntness that at first I find offensive, but soon learn to trust. I learn quickly and change, adopting virtually everything Phil suggests. It’s the kind of training media students dream of.

  I listen as Phil outlines my strengths and weaknesses, on and off camera, and rather than work on improving where I fall short, he adds focus to areas where I excel. Over a coffee between sessions in the studio, he says I have two assets and that playing to those strengths is the way we’re going. I don’t miss the subtle hint that I’m not a part of this decision, but I find the automatic nature of it somehow comforting.

  The first of my so-called assets is what he calls a natural intimacy with the camera. He frames it as “presence” and “gravity,” and while I don’t fully grasp how this is conveyed through a camera, I do recognize that it exists. It’s a curious thing, the power of a camera; intelligent, composed people routinely cave in on themselves and begin to babble uncontrollably once they are fixed in the unblinking eye of a television camera. It seems not to affect me that way—I don’t know why—but in this, my new line of work, it is apparently a valued trait.

  The second of my two alleged assets is my ability to write copy. Phil likes what he describes as my style. He describes it as compassionate but without bias. Evenhanded but grounded in our Western perspective, our culture. I understand this more than his discourse on camera intimacy, but there’s still much I find myself learning from him, particularly in the delivery.

  The copy, or script, technically, is one thing, but how you convey it—from the words you choose to emphasize to the placement of something as simple as a pause—is an entire skill unto itself. Phil is a master of subtleties and is clearly fascinated by the art of delivery: the onscreen mechanism that supports the words being spoken, and which, according to Phil, is responsible for almost the entire mood of any given piece. We watch hours of tape together and I quickly understand what he means. It’s in the smallest tilt of the reporter’s head, the half-hitched breath before describing a tragedy, the way he holds his hands or the sense of tension stiffening his shoulders. It’s thin, almost gossamer in its existence, yet its collective layers can couch a story even before the first word is spoken.

  “It’s the dark stories you want,” Phil says to me, staring at archived footage of Christiane Amanpour reporting from somewhere in war-torn Sarajevo in the mid-’90s. “Don’t let them put you into anything fluffy. And I mean never.”

  “Dark stories?”

  “If you want credibility, that’s where it is. And credibility is your stock in trade. You need to acquire it fast and hang on to it. Lose it, and you might as well go get a job in the mall. ’Cause you’re fucked without it.”

  “And you expect Stewart will start me out with fluff.” It is half question, half statement.

  “If you let him.”

  “So when he hands me an assignment to cover the Santa Claus parade I should say, ‘Bah Humbug’?”

  “Something like that. Just remember this is a team sport. Where you go, so goes your cameraman—and a producer if you’re lucky. Understand that everyone is tied to the feed.”

  “No pressure, then.”

  “Not for me.”

  • • •

  After three weeks of dry runs, endless copy, and far too much together time in confined editing booths, Phil announces it’s time to start earning my pay. My cherry-popper comes in the form of an economy ticket to Saudi Arabia, where an American is being held in prison after having been charged with murder. The diplomatic channels are humming and the world is watching to see what the Saudis will do: a potential death penalty, flimsy evidence, allegations of torture, and the need for the royal family to save face all make for compelling TV.

  Chaperoned by Phil and a cameraman named Vince McMillan, I spend three days on the ground and file six stories, only one of which sees airtime back at USBN. At the outset of each shot, Phil and Vince argue about vagaries—light levels, filters, angles, and framing—and I watch and wait until the skirmish dissolves into a series of halting compromises. Phil outranks Vince in the pecking order, but as the routine of their argument settles into a well-worn path, I understand that what I am watching is Phil’s deft handling of a budding talent.

  I notice how Phil’s challenges are often on things Vince is well versed in, and after a while I see that the challenges are designed to see how vigorously Vince will defend himself and his point of view. At first Vince yields to Phil’s rank and authority, but as the days progress and the squabbling continues, I begin to see a new Vince emerge, one that is prepared to say no, that’s not the right way to do this, and as he emerges I see something akin to satisfaction in Phil.

  “You’re a fucking bully, Phil,” I say, laughing, as we sit at the airport in Riyadh waiting for our flight home. I jab my thumb in the direction of the washroom Vince has disappeared into. “You’ve been baiting that poor bastard for the last three days, haven’t you?”

  Phil smiles. “Two things. First, I am not a bully. What you’re seeing is someone skilled in the art of social acupuncture. Second, Vince is no poor bastard. That little lens monkey relieving himself in there will one day be the most celebrated man in his profession. You mark my words.”

  After Saudi Arabia, there are trips to Palestine, China, and South Korea, chasing political flare-ups and military brouhahas. I file stories on human rights abuses, border skirmishes, and tin-pot generals bent on clinging to power no matter the cost. With Vince, I cover small tragedies that frame wholesale calamities: mothers weeping over children blown to bits by land mines, villages leveled by disease and famine and left to quietly expire, babies with bellies swelling mightily with malnutrition and choking in the red dust kicked up by government officials in big black Mercedes-Benzes.

  And as I travel and file stories, I begin to see the same faces again and again. I learn the therapeutic value of the local bar in whatever place we might be and the informal debrief it provides. The humor is caustic and dark. The daily horrors are chased away by bouts of loud, if slightly forced, laughter and liberal helpings of local brew. There is an uneasy fraternity in this traveling road show of pseudoprofessionals. In the evening-before, there is back slapping and camaraderie; in the morning
after, there are quiet and hasty departures, whispered talk of where the story might be, and where the day’s lead will be found. Often, the group miraculously convenes at the same place from a dozen different routes, and some odd conspiracy of silence allows us all to nod straight-faced in recognition but mention nothing of how we each got wind of the story. To discuss it would be an inexcusable breach of decorum.

  I learn how to live in threes: three shirts, three pairs of underwear, three pairs of socks, three pairs of pants. As I wear a groove in the road I discover that my anniversary—the start of my life as a foreign correspondent—is marked, year after year, with a call or an email from Colin Dysart. Chloe’s birthday is so close to my start date at USBN that the two are now inexorably linked, and as the day approaches I know he will reach out, perhaps with a scotch or two under his belt, perhaps not. Often we don’t actually talk, just swap emails or leave short messages on answering machines around the world. For me it has become a macabre tradition; for Colin Dysart, something else.

  The routine is the same: Dysart asks after my progress, how I’m doing, where I’ve been working, and eventually, sometimes elegantly and often not, he begins to talk about Chloe. I understand the calls, the emails, and I do see them as a penance of sort, but I hate them. They keep my own demons alive, despite what I chase around the world for USBN. Still, the calls and emails come year after year, reminding me of how all this was paid for, and by whom.

  Of course, the sins committed out here by arrogant military bullies and political jackals make a mockery of my own small transgressions. Their size and scope dwarf anything I’ve done, and cast large, dark shadows in which I can hide. In fact, I soon understand that muddling through the obscenities of others in faraway places is, for me anyway, a soothing balm. If Dr. Coyle could prescribe this shit for all her patients, well, she’d be on to something for sure.

  • • •

  After three years of being almost constantly in motion with USBN, and with only short hiatuses back home, I have started to develop something of an appreciation for the thrill. The work pattern is much the way it’s said to be for soldiers: long hours of boredom and drudgery punctuated suddenly and without warning by fleeting moments of sheer panic. Getting jacked up on adrenaline is a powerful drug and seeing wide grins on animated, giggling crews as they pile into the bar, still caked in concrete dust from some explosive near miss, can’t help but make you think the word: junkie.

  Chase the four horsemen. Get the shot. Land a printable quote. That’s the entire job description.

  Vince and I cover story after story, tragedy after tragedy, year after year, always paying heed to Phil’s doctrine of the Dark Story. It pays off and we slowly eke out a solid reputation in our professional community. Our stories seem to get noticed for their relevance, and somehow Vince and I develop a knack for finding the right face, the right quote, the right shot. As our credibility grows, we discover that the stories and leads come more easily; we’re far from attaining any kind of celebrity status, but somehow the locals and their stories always seem to come to us first. We load the feed with famine, genocide, assassination. We cover bloody coups and dictators laden with ribbon and braid. We watch for the world as they step from shiny black cars, the shoeless masses smiling hollowly, waving small paper flags issued by the soldiers moving among them.

  On the second to last day of my fifth year at USBN, I cycle back into the city. At the airport, the crowds are thick with tired travelers and as I move through customs I see something in the agent’s eye as he recognizes either my name or my face. Once clear, I check my cell phone for messages and find the battery dead. At the luggage carousel I get more bad news as I wait for a bag that isn’t coming. I find the lost bag desk and join the slow-moving line with the others. I plug my phone charger into the socket in the wall beside me and pick up my messages.

  What I hear on the phone stops me cold.

  37

  I become aware of the round, middle-aged woman behind me in the lost baggage line. She is huffing and tutting, trying to convey her displeasure at the fact that I have not cinched up the line that has now moved ahead of me a good three or four spots. I stare at her blankly, still processing the last message on my phone, and finally she simply moves past me and back into the line. I offer no resistance, unplug the charger, and fall in behind her.

  I haven’t spoken to him in almost two years, but his message was all Leo Bowman: congratulatory in a backhanded sort of way. “Hi, Roland, it’s Leo. I keep seeing your on-location reports on the news, and one of these days I’m actually going to turn on the sound.”

  Hearing from the Professor is not what stops me cold, nor is it his (only half) tongue-in-cheek comment about my move to the journalistic equivalent of fast food and away from the purity of print. No, it’s his last comment, a quick dig about my being a big shot, so much so that now the media has turned its harsh glare on itself. He’d even been called for some background material on me by an intern journalist at the Star-Telegraph.

  An intern working for Dave Barret.

  • • •

  My heart is racing and my mouth is dry with dread. “Hi, Professor, I just got back,” I say, being entirely truthful. I’ve been back in my condo for only moments, having thrown my bags to the floor and paused just long enough to scatter files and papers frantically as I searched for his number, finally locating it in an old journal that doubles as an address book.

  The trip from the airport was too long. Trapped in the cab with a dead cell phone meant I couldn’t act, couldn’t call and quiz Professor Bowman the way I was burning to. Instead, I had to sit and silently urge the car on, clenching my teeth while my thoughts began coiling, turning slowly in on themselves where they found fuel to grow and take on every horror lurking nearby.

  “Roland!” he says back to me and I hear suspicion in his voice immediately. Or do I? “I left that message a week ago. I had assumed you were far too important now to talk to old out-of-touch academics like me.”

  I know the game, the one where we trade clever jibes, and I’ve always enjoyed it, but the implications of the call from Barret’s intern are moving in my gut like well-brewed morning-after vomit. Still, I try to play along for normality, so I can get to the asking. “Well, like fashion, you’ll eventually be relevant again. Someday,” I say, trying to sound carefree and chipper. “But considering your age, that day had better be soon!”

  “Well said!”

  I can’t wait any longer. “Leo…” I realize suddenly that it’s the first time I’ve ever called him by his first name. “I’m sorry, but look, what did the intern want to know? Specifically.”

  “Do I detect a bit of unease at her having called? Well, I guess it is a bit odd having someone look into your life. Perhaps that’ll give you some insight into the feelings of those on whom you report. I’m sure you remember Schlesinger’s book—”

  “Seriously, Leo, um, Professor. What did she want?”

  He pauses and I feel a new weightiness on the line even before he speaks. “Is everything all right, Roland?”

  “Yes, sure. Just, what did she say?” I’m fighting a rising frustration. I want to shout into the phone, I want to scream at Leo and tell him to hurry the fuck up. But I choke it down and force myself into the appearance of calm. In my hand, the phone creaks as I channel all my frustration into my fist. “Sorry. I’ve just come off a fifteen-hour flight and I’m feeling it. But I will admit I’m not used to people looking into me. So I’m pretty curious as to what it was all about.”

  “Fair enough. Well, let me see. She was mostly interested in your habits. The kind of person I remembered you to be. Oh, and she asked if you enjoyed the ponies, that sort of thing.”

  I sit hard on the chair beside me. Not because I meant to, but because my legs are suddenly incapable of supporting my weight. The daisy chain connects with remarkable speed: The ponies. Gambling. There is only one reason gambling would be on the question list for an interview about me, and
that’s Trots. I’m clutching wildly for answers in my head, reaching and finding nothing—nothing save the feeling that the air in the room is evaporating, leaving me breathless and near panic.

  “Roland, are you there?” The Professor’s voice is tinged with concern, and I know he’s leaning forward in his chair the way he always would when he saw me in his offices, especially when we spoke about my doubts for the future, my fears of the world I was being prepared for.

  “Yeah.”

  Always direct, he asks, “Are you in some kind of trouble there, Roland?”

  “No. No, sorry. I’m just having a hard time with a bunch of stuff right now. Nothing too crazy, just the usual.”

  “You know I’m always here if you need to bounce ideas off someone. And there’s always Dr. Coyle.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I’m okay. Thanks, though. Look, Professor, I’ve got to go. I have all kinds of things to tie up—you know what it’s like when you’ve been on an assignment for weeks on end.”

  “Actually, no. I’ve been a print man all my life.”

  Even in my state of near panic, I pick up on the dig. “I hear you. Anyway, thanks for the heads up. I’ll let you know how it all works out.”

  “All right then, Roland.”

  “All right.” I hang up and pace around my condo, energy aplenty but no clear understanding of how to direct it, where to go, or what to do next. I try to recall those years-old conversations I’ve had with Dr. Coyle—conversations about coping strategies, about mechanisms and tools and skills, but I can’t focus on a damn thing.

  The phone rings and I know it’s the Professor again, his intuition forcing him to call and make sure I’m not stretching my neck or taking a hot bath with a razor blade. I snatch up the receiver and say, with a little more edge in my voice than I mean, “I’m fine, Leo. Really.”