Evening News Read online

  Halfway across the bridge the truck and its occupants left New York State and entered New Jersey. Now, for Miguel and the others in the Medellin gang, the haven of their Hackensack headquarters was reassuringly close.

  13

  Bert Fisher lived and worked in a tiny apartment in Larchmont. He was sixty-eight and had been a widower for a decade. His business cards described him as a news reporter, though in the parlance of journalism he was more realistically a stringer.

  Like other stringers, Bert was the local representative of several news organizations based in larger centers, some of which paid him a small retainer. He submitted information or written copy and got paid for what was used, if anything. Since small-town local news rarely had national or even area-wide significance, getting something published in a major newspaper or reported on radio or television was difficult, which was why no one ever made a fortune as a stringer and most-like Bert Fisher—barely scraped by.

  Still, Bert enjoyed what he was doing. During World War, as an American G. I. in Europe he had worked for the armed forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes. It had put journalism in his bloodstream and ever since he had happily been a modest part of it. Even now, though age had slowed him a little, he still made telephone calls each day to local sources and kept several scanner radios switched on, thus hearing communications of local police, fire departments, ambulances and other public services. He always hoped that something might be worth following up and reporting to a major chronicler of news.

  That was how Bert heard the Larchmont police transmission ordering an officer in car 423 to go to the Grand Union supermarket. It seemed like a routine call until, soon after, the officer alerted police headquarters to a possible kidnap. At the word "kidnap,” Bert sat up straight, locked the radio on the Larchmont police frequency, and reached for copy paper to make notes.

  By the time the transmission finished, Bert knew he must hurry to the scene of action. First, however, he needed to call New York City television station WCBA.

  * * *

  At WCBA-TV an assistant news director took Bert Fisher's call.

  WCBA, a wholly owned affiliate of the CBA network, was a prestigious local station serving the New York area. It operated out of three floors of a Manhattan office building a mile or so from its network parent. Although a local station, it had an enormous audience; also, because of the amount of news which New York generated, WCBA's news organization was in many ways a microcosm of the network's.

  In a bustling, noise-filled newsroom where thirty people worked at closely clustered desks, the assistant news director checked Bert Fisher's name against a list in a loose-leaf binder.”Okay,” he said, "what do you have?”

  He listened while the stringer described the police radio message and his intention to go to the Larchmont scene.

  ”Just a 'possible' kidnap, eh?”

  "Yes, sir.”

  Although Bert Fisher was almost three times as old as the young man he was addressing, he still observed a deference to rank, carried forward from another age.

  ”All right, Fisher, get going! Call back immediately if there's anything real.”

  "Right, sir. Will do.”

  Hanging up, the assistant news director realized the call might be just a false alarm. On the other hand, big-breaking news sometimes tiptoed in through unlikely doorways. For a moment he considered dispatching a camera crew to Larchmont, then decided not. At this point the stringer's report was nebulous. Besides, the available crews were already on assignment, so it would mean pulling one away from an active story. Nor, without more information, was there anything which could be broadcast.

  The assistant did, however, walk over to the elevated newsroom desk where the station's woman news director presided, and tell her about the call.

  After hearing him out, she confirmed his decision. But afterward a thought occurred to her and she picked up a telephone that connected her directly to CBA network news. She asked for Ernie LaSalle, the national editor with whom she sometimes exchanged information.

  ”Look,” she said, "this may turn out to be nothing.” Repeating what she had just heard, she added, "But it is Larchmont and I know Crawford Sloane lives there. It's a small place, it might involve someone he knows, so I thought you'd want to tell him.”

  "Thanks,” LaSalle said.”Let me know if there's anything more.”

  * * *

  When he hung up the phone, Ernie LaSalle momentarily weighed the potential importance of the information. The likelihood was, it would amount to zero. Just the same . . .

  On instinct and impulse he picked up the red reporting phone.

  ”National desk. LaSalle. We are advised that at Larchmont, repeat Larchmont, New York, the local police radio reports a possible kidnapping. No other details. Our friends at WCBA are following up and will inform us.”

  As always, the national editor's words were carried throughout the CBA News headquarters. Some who heard wondered why LaSalle had put something so insubstantial on the speaker system. Others, unconcerned, returned their attention to whatever else they had been doing. One floor above the newsroom, senior producers at the Horseshoe paused to listen. One of them, pointing to Crawford Sloane who could be seen through the closed glassed doorway to his private office, observed, "If there's a kidnapping let's be thankful it's someone else in Larchmont and not Crawf. Unless that's his double in there.” The others laughed.

  Crawford Sloane heard LaSalle's announcement through a speaker on his desk. He had closed the door for a private meeting with the president of CBA News, Leslie Chippingham. While Sloane, in asking for the meeting, had suggested he go to Chippingham's office, the other man had chosen to come here.

  Both paused until the national editor's words concluded and Sloane's interest was quickened by the mention of Larchmont. At any other time he would have gone to the newsroom to seek more information. But as it was, he did not want to stop what had suddenly become a no-holds-barred confrontation which, to the anchorman's surprise, was not going at all the way he had expected.

  14

  "My instinct tells me, Crawf, you have a problem,” the CBA News president said, opening their conversation.

  ”Your instinct is wrong,” Crawford Sloane responded.”It's you who have the problem. It's readily solvable, but you need to make some structural changes. Quickly.”

  Leslie Chippingham sighed. He was a thirty-year veteran of TV news who had begun his career at age nineteen as a messenger at NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report, the premier news show of its day. Even then he had learned that an anchorman must be handled as delicately as a Ming vase and receive the deference accorded heads of state. It was Chippingham's success in doing both which, along with other talents, had raised him to executive producer, then kept him a senior management survivor while other high climbers—including a bevy of network news presidents—were exiled to TV's backwaters or the oblivion of early retirement.

  Chippingham had a facility for being at ease with everyone and making others feel the same way. It was once said of him that if he fired you, he made you feel good about it.

  ”So tell me,” he asked Sloane.”What changes?”

  "I can't continue to work with Chuck Insen. He has to go. And when we choose a new exec producer I want the casting vote.”

  "Well, well. You're right about there being a problem.” Chippingham chose his words cautiously and added, "Though it's perhaps a different one, Crawf, from what you think.”

  Crawford Sloane regarded his nominal superior. What he saw was a towering figure, even seated—Chippingham was six-foot-four and weighed a trim 205 pounds. The face was more rugged than handsome, the eyes bright blue and the hair a forest of tight curls, now mostly gray. Across the years a succession of women had taken pleasure in running their fingers through Chippingham's curls, that particular pleasure invariably preceding others. Women, in fact, had been Les Chippingham's lifelong weakness, their conquest an irresistible hobby. At this moment, because of those indulg
ences, he was facing marital and financial disaster—a fact unknown to Sloane, though he, like others, was aware of Chippingham's womanizing.

  Chippingham, however, knew he must put his own concerns aside to cope with Crawford Sloane. It would be like walking a high wire, as any colloquy with an anchorman always was.

  "Let's quit futzing around,” Sloane said, "and come to the point.”

  Chippingham agreed, "I was about to. As we both know, many things in network news are changing . . .”

  "Oh for chrissakes, Les, of course they are!” Sloane cut in impatiently.”That's why I have problems with Insen. We need to change the shape of our news—with fewer quick headlines and more important stories developed thoroughly.”

  "I'm aware of your feelings. We've been over this before. I also know what Chuck believes and, by the way, he came to see me earlier this morning, complaining about you.”

  Sloane's eyes widened. He had not expected the executive producer to take the initiative in their dispute; it was not the way things usually happened.”What does he think you can do?” he asked.

  Chippingham. hesitated.”Hell, I suppose there's no point in not telling you. He believes the two of you are so far apart that your differences aren't reconcilable. Chuck wants you out.”

  The anchorman threw back his head and laughed.”And him stay? That's ridiculous.”

  The news president met his gaze directly.”Is it?”

  "Of course. And you know it.”

  "I knew it once; I'm not sure I do now.” Ahead of them both was untrodden ground. Chippingham eased onto it guardedly.

  ”What I'm trying to get through to you, Crawf, is that nothing anymore is the way it used to be. Since the networks were bought out, everything's in flux. You know as well as I do there's a good deal of feeling among our new masters—at this network and the others—about the power of the evening anchormen. Those goliaths running the parent companies want to diminish that power; also they're unhappy about some of the big salaries for which they think they're not getting value. Recently there's been talk about private, quiet agreements.”

  Sloane said sharply, "What kind of agreements?”

  "The way I hear, the kind big entrepreneurs reach in their exclusive clubs and private homes. For example: 'We'll tell our network not to try to hire away your network news people, provided you agree not to go after ours. That way we won't push salaries up all around, and can work on reducing some of the big ones.”

  “That's collusion, restraint of trade. It's goddamned illegal!”

  "Only if you can prove it happened,” Chippingham pointed out.”How can you, though, if the agreement's made over drinks at the Links Club or the Metropolitan, and no record is kept, nothing ever written down?”

  Sloane was silent and Chippingham pressed the message home.”What it amounts to, Crawf, is that this is not the best of times to push too hard.”

  Sloane said abruptly, "You said Insen envisaged someone else in my place. Who?”

  "He mentioned Harry Partridge.”

  Partridge! Once more, Sloane thought, he was looming as a competitor. He wondered if Partridge had planted the idea. As if divining the thought, Chippingham said, "Apparently Chuck mentioned the idea to Harry, who was surprised but didn't think he'd be interested.”

  Chippingham added, "Oh, another thing Chuck Insen told me: If it comes to a choice between him and you, he isn't going without a fight. He's threatened to take it personally to the top.”

  "Meaning what?”

  "Meaning he'll talk to Margot Lloyd-Mason.”

  Crawford Sloane exploded.”Go to that bitch! He wouldn't dare!”

  "I believe he would. And she may be a bitch, but Margot has the power.”

  As Leslie Chippingham well knew.

  * * *

  CBA had been the last of the major broadcast networks to fall victim to what those in the business privately labeled "the invasion of the Philistines.”That was the description given to the takeover of the networks by industrial conglomerates whose insistence on constantly enlarging profits outweighed their sense of privilege and public duty. This, in contrast to the past when leaders like CBSs Paley, NBCs Sarnoff and ABCs Goldenson, while dedicated capitalists, were consistent demonstrators Of their public obligations too.

  Nine months before, after failed attempts to keep CBA independent, the network had been swallowed by Globanic Industries Inc., a corporate giant with worldwide holdings. Like General Electric, which had earlier acquired NBC Globanic was a major defense contractor. Also like GE, Globanic's record included corporate criminality. On one occasion, following grand jury investigations, the company was fined and top-rank executives sentenced to prison terms for rigging bids and price-fixing. On another the company pleaded guilty to defrauding the US. Government by falsifying defense contract accounting records; a million-dollar fine was levied—the maximum under law, though a small amount compared with a single contract's total value. As a commentator wrote at the time of Globanic's takeover, "Globanic has just too many special interestsfor CBA not to have lost some editorial independence. Can you envisage CBA ever again digging deeply into a sensitive area where its parent is involved?”

  Since the takeover of CBA, there had been public assurances from the network's new owners that the traditional independence of CBA News would be respected. The view from inside, though, was that such promises were proving hollow.

  The transformation of CBA began with the arrival of Margot Lloyd-Mason as the network's new president and chief executive officer. Known to be efficient, ruthless and exceedingly ambitious, she was already a vice president of Globanic Industries. It was rumored that her move to CBA was a trial run to see whether she would demonstrate sufficient toughness to qualify as eventual chairman of the parent company.

  Leslie Chippingham first encountered his new chieftain when she sent for him a few days after her arrival. Instead of the usual personal phone call—a courtesy extended by Mrs. Lloyd-Mason's predecessor to divisional president is—he received a peremptory message through a secretary to appear immediately at "Stonehenge, “the colloquial network name for CBA's Third Avenue headquarters. He went there in a chauffeur-driven limousine.

  Margot Lloyd-Mason was tall, with upswept blond hair, a high-cheekboned, lightly tanned face and shrewdly appraising eyes. She wore an elegant taupe Chanel suit with a paler-toned silk blouse. Later, Chippingham would describe her as "attractive but formidable.”

  The chief executive's manner was both friendly and cool.”You may use my first name, "she told the news president, while making it sound like an order. Then, without wasting time, she got down to business.

  ”There will be an announcement sometime today about a problem Theo Elliott is having.”

  Theodore Elliott was chairman of Globanic Industries.

  ”The announcement's already been made,” Chippingham said.”By the IRS in Washington, this morning. They claim our king-of-kings has underpaid his personal taxes by some four million dollars.”

  By chance, Chippingham had seen the story on the AP wire. The circumstances were that Elliott had made investments in what was now exposed as an illegal tax shelter. The creator of the tax shelter was being criminally prosecuted. Elliott was not, but would be required to pay back taxes plus large amounts in penalties.

  ”Theo has telephoned, “Margot said, "assuring me he had no idea the arrangement was illegal.”

  “I suppose there are some who'll believe that, “Chippingham said, aware of the army of lawyers, accountants and tax advisers which someone like the Globanic chairman would have at his disposal.

  Margot said icily, "Don't be flippant about this. I sent for you because I want nothing about Theo and taxes to appear on our news, and I’d like you to ask the other networks not to report it either.”

  Chippingham, shocked and scarcely believing what he had just heard, struggled to keep his voice calm.”Margot, if I were to call the other networks with that request, not only would they turn it down, bu
t they would report on the air that CBA News had attempted to arrange a cover-up. And frankly, if something similar happened in reverse, at CBA we'd do the same.”

  Even while speaking, he realized that the new network head had demonstrated in a single brief exchange not only her lack of knowledge of the broadcast business, but a total insensitivity to news-gathering ethics. But then, he reminded himself it was public knowledge that neither of those things had brought her here, but instead, her financial acumen and an ability to create profits.

  ”All right, “she said grudgingly, "I suppose I have to accept what you say about the other networks. But I want nothing on our own news.”

  Chippingham sighed inwardly, knowing that from now on his job as news president was going to be monumentally more difficult.”Please believe me, Margot, when I tell you as a certainty that tonight the other networks will use that piece of news about Mr. Elliott and his taxes. And if we don't use it also, it will create more attention by jar than if we do. That's because everyone will be watching to see how fair and impartial we are, especially after the statements by Globanic that the freedom of our News Division will not be interfered with.”

  The network president's strong face was set grimly, her lips compressed, but her silence showed she understood the point Chippingham had made. At length she said, "You'll keep it short?”

  "That will happen automatically. It's not something that's worth a long report.”

  “And I don't want some smart-ass reporter implying that Theo knew about the illegality when he says he didn't.”

  “The one thing I'll promise you, “Chippingham said, "is that whatever we do will be fair. I'll see to it myself.”

  Margot made no comment and instead picked up a slip of paper on her desk "You came here in a chauffeured limo.”