| 07 February 2006 Going To Press It was a tough morning, as we have sometimes in the news business. The morning meeting can be a pressure cooker. Choices must be made, emphasis placed, nuance determined. This was a brutal meeting. The writers were tired. The Editor was cranky. The financial section was seething; ad revenues were down. It is not like there isn't enough mayhem and murder at which to grasp, but the car bombs and dead Marines have become so- well, part of every day life. The Daily needed a winner, something that would titillate and educate. “That is a fine line. It would be too easy to just show the cartoons. They are pretty tame stuff, and the editorial cartoons in the New York Times are more harsh than those tame things. Maybe we should just describe them and publish a link. That makes it their problem. Every reader for themselves.” “Making fun of the President is not considered blasphemy. We don't want a mob outside Big Pink. Think what could happen to the editorial Mercedes.” “Yeah, that is precisely The Story.” “No,” harrumphed the Editor, stubbing out his cigar in the saucer of his café con leche. “It is yesterday's story. The cartoons are yesterday's news. We had enough about that yesterday, and even snuck in a couple jokes.” “Actually, Boss, they are last September's news, when those innocent Danes had the gall to see if Islam could take the same mockery that every other major religion gets.” “Those naive morons. There are some things you can't mess with. There are five or six more dead this morning, A Priest shot in the Black Sea. Five dead outside Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.” “I thought he was hot in the chest. But it is about the same thing as it was yesterday. The Syrians are stirring up the problem in Lebanon for their own purposes. In fact, everywhere this is happening, it is being used for something else. Did you hear about the call for a world contest for offensive cartoons about the Holocaust?” “If you think you can get anyone interested in the story behind the story, you are welcome to try.” “How about a link to the three cartoons with the unclean animals that were added by the rabble -rousers to make sure that we aren't talking about the same thing.” “But those are blasphemous, and they were not part of the original set.” “You may be on to something there. If you could explain that part of the story it might be worth ragging this through another news cycle, until something significant comes along.” “Like the President's budget? They say it is dead on arrival up on the Hill.” The Editor scowled. “Don't even think about doing a feature story on the budget. Inside the Beltway procedural stories are death. Puts the readership to sleep.” The guy from the press gang looked at his watch. “Time's a wasting. Make up you damned minds or there is going to be no story at all.” “Hey, Boss,” said the young guy from advertising. “Why don't we just do a long rant about how stupid everything is?” The Editor glowered down the long table. “That would be the editorial equivalent of making a film telling the Aristocrat Joke over and over again. That was the dirtiest joke in show business, everything included. How would we look if we did that?” “But think who we could put in it, doing the most amazing things.” The Editor looked at him passively. The clock ticked. “Well, I suppose that is an approach, and it isn't that much different than what we do anyway.” Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |