Down near the tall towers of Sydney where serious reporters roam, the senior editor of a weekly magazine was in a conference to decide who would fill a junior vacancy in the news room. Bodies were needed to do the work. The occasional terror to her staff, she had become silver-haired in media service. She was now gazing out over the newsroom, head resting on one hand, wondering if she would have been better off preening herself as editor-in-chief of a women’s magazine group, as an earnest subordinate droned on.
“Now for the junior positions,” the subordinate said, “there is Samuel, who has a double degree in law and economics, a writing award from the literature board, and is a junior consultant at the Reserve Bank. We couldn’t hire him at anything less than a J6.”
“Yeah, yeah!” said the editor, putting her head on her hand, “a writing award, right!” At the table, besides herself and the subordinate, was a women assistant editor to something and the magazine’s deputy editor whom, she strongly suspected, was doodling in his notebook. The deputy was gazing intently through his enormous, round glasses at the notebook, propped up on the stack of printouts from the week’s final conference, and making careful strokes in it with a pencil. What could interest the man so?
“Then there is Brittany who has a doctorate in race relations, and a gold medal in women’s pistol shooting.”
“In pistol shooting?” said the editor, without raising her head from her hand. “That’s different. Has she shot anyone important?”
“Um, no, no, just targets. She’s a vegetarian.”
“Vegan,” corrected the assistant editor, as if that was an important distinction for a journalist.
“If she’d shot someone important, she could have written about it. As it is, it doesn’t count,” said the editor.
“We are trying to broaden the skills of the staff,” said the assistant editor.
“To include pistol shooting? The way most of staff feel about me I don’t care for that skill. All the newsroom’s in range. Anyway, what does this women, or any of those two gifts to journalism know about getting stories?”
“They can be trained in that,” said the junior.
“Pig’s arse they can,” said the editor. “These academics get on staff and want to write reviews on bloody art house films from Iran. The blockbuster films don’t get a look in, because they’re too low brow. Can I get reviews of any of the Spiderman films in? No! What I get is reviews on films about AIDS-infected tribes people in Somalia who are misunderstood but noble, or rave reviews about alternate theatre pieces that no one understands; articles that are primers for frigging gender studies. No wonder people are playing video games instead of racing to the newsstand to get our magazine. We’re being killed by celebrity rags printing rehashed stories from Hollywood press agents, and the academics we hire want to write columns telling our readers that they are a load of uneducated wankers, because they rush to the newsstands to get magazines with rehashed stories from Hollywood press agents.” The editor was warming to her theme, while the assistant editor and subordinate looked on helplessly. “Then there are the political writers; what political writers don’t know is almost everything, especially if they’ve got double degrees and ..”
“So who else was there?” said the deputy loudly, looking up from his notebook.
The editor stopped herself in full flight. “Was I raving again?” she asked of the deputy.
“The latest Spiderman was good,” he said tactfully, and went back to his doodling.
“And the last one is this suburban journo,” said the subordinate, putting a CV on top of the others in front of him, and frowning, “who lists as one of his achievements as being ‘disgraced in all of Koala Bay’.”
“Oh that guy,” said the assistant editor doubtfully. “You put him in?”
The subordinate had in fact included Miles’s CV at the last moment in order to make her favoured candidate, the vegan shootist, look better. She had even mentioned the achievement of being disgraced as she was sure that would sink his application. It did not.
The editor lifted her head from her hand at the mention of Miles’ achievement; the deputy also looked up.
“I was disgraced in Kiama once,” said the deputy.
“Oh please,” said the editor, “not another story about being found passed out, face down in your own vomit in the pub car park then getting up to write a front-page story. I still haven’t recovered from the one about the two bottles of red wine and the Walkley award.”
“It wasn’t a pub it was a casino.”
“Big difference.”
“My mates said that beer w’d make the pokies work better,” he told the assistant, who make the mistake of catching the deputy’s eye.
“So disgraced in Koala Bay?” said the editor, cutting off her deputy. “That’s sad. How did he come to be disgraced up there?”
The junior flicked through a couple of pages. “He wrote a story revealing the existence of regulation that stopped a big development on the foreshore. The developer told him he was disgraced.”
“I think I remember that story.” The editor looked at the deputy. “They were going to build some monstrosity on the beach, but found a regulation preventing it just before work was going to start. Didn’t the council there know about their own regulations?”
“It had been forgotten,” said the deputy, make twin quotation marks in the air when he came to the word forgotten. “Everyone was for it, but now there’s a big inquest.”
“I’m sure there is. Should keep the courts busy for years.” The editor was amused. “No wonder he was declared disgraced - and he broke this story?”
“Yeah, it was the suburban up there originally,” said the deputy. “Wasn’t there also something about lawyers up there?”
By way of answer the subordinate reluctantly held up a page from the CV which was a copy of the Werribee and Wilson story.
“Dear dear, naughty lawyers,” said the editor leaning over to glance at the story’s first few paragraphs. “Reads well enough. Could be the subs have knocked it into shape. I seem to remember that story also got in the dailies, as part of something bigger. We looked at it too, but didn’t run anything. If we hire him maybe he’d get stories? Now wouldn’t that be a nice change.”
“Hang on,” said the deputy, “now I remember, I think this is the same bloke who shoved Martin Towers down some stairs for stealing stories.”
“That was him?” said the editor, who had heard the story, “well the poor lamb has been busy up there hasn’t he.”
“Should’ve shoved harder,” muttered the deputy.
“But it’s just the Bugle Group,” wailed the assistant. “He just a suburban journo who came from the country…” The assistant stopped abruptly, because the editor had whirled round to unleash one of her full-voltage, high-beam stares that had reduced junior editors to gibbering wrecks and cracked glass at 20 paces, or so newsroom legend had it. The assistant hastily assessed her conduct and realised what she had done wrong. “I mean.. well, you were on suburbans too boss..”
“And in the country. Three years reporting in Mudgee and two years looking for stories in Parramatta, thank you very much. Have any of these academically trained yobs – he waved a hand in the direction of the news room – tried looking for stories in Mudgee. I think not. That settles it.” She rounded on the subordinate: “is he in one of those Bugle single or double reporter papers?”
“It’s just him, sounds like,” said the subordinate, surprised at the turn of events.
“He’s just got an Ag Science degree at Albury!” protested the assistant.
“No degree in the arts? Good. He probably doesn’t want to write film reviews. He’s not on staff and already he’s gone up in my estimation. If he can do one of those Bugle Group single reporter papers for a year and break stories he can do anything we’ve got.” She switched sights to her deputy. “Get this guy in. If he arrives sober and appears to be in his right mind then hire him on a J4. After the Bugle Group rates of pay he’ll think he’s a millionaire.” She shifted back to the assistant. “Tell the writing award person to come back when I’m drunk and the shootist can go fuck herself. Oh yes, and this Bugle guy,” she targeted the deputy again, “if we hire this guy it’s on the condition that he has to get himself disgraced in all of Australia. I won’t have any of reporters disgraced in just one part of Sydney, we’re a national magazine.”
“But we can’t have this guy!” protested the deputy, who had been handed Miles’ CV.
“And why not pray?”
“He plays AFL.”
The editor rolled her eyes. “It could be worse,” she snapped, “he could support Canterbury.” She departed abruptly for her own office.
“There’s nothing wrong with the Bulldogs,” said the deputy to the assistant. The assistant rolled her eyes.
The meeting was over.
Two weeks later near the end of another busy day, Miles dropped into South Forest headquarters carrying an unsealed envelope containing his short resignation letter. He waved at the journalists on the reporter’s side of the room, which included Jake, and nodded at the subs – he would mingle in a moment. Then he found that Bronwyn was not at her usual perch guarding the entrance to Justin’s office. As he approached, the door opened and a small man with a fringe of white hair, wearing a tie but no coat, came out of the office.
“You must be one of the reporters,” he said, stepping away from the door. “Jim Charles.” He offered his hand.
“Oh you’re Mr. Charles,” said Miles, shaking the chief executive’s hand. “I’m Miles Black.”
The older man’s eyes were briefly round with astonishment, “Oh you’re Miles Black.”
“The same.”
“Heard a lot about you.” He said, looking down and shuffling his feet.
“I’ve no doubt,” said Miles, cheerfully. “And now I can tell you it’s all true.”
“It is?” Charles looked up in surprise.
“Uh huh! But listen Mr. Charles, did you know we don’t have email up there and we can’t get IT support to return our calls.”
“Um no.” Mr. Charles was surprised by the sudden turn in conversation. “Why don’t they return your calls?”
“Because we’re not part of the network they’re contracted for.”
“.. not part of..,” Charles was clearly astonished. “How is that so?”
“Your sister bought the computers, had them installed and won’t pay for IT support. We’re not on the same network as everyone else.”
“Oh! No one’s told me anything about this. How long has this been going on?”
“Since last year?”
The chief executive seemed stunned. “And no-one said anything?”
“We complained to everyone we could think of. No result.”
“I see. I will look into this immediately, and try to get a technician there tomorrow. We must have all our people on the company email system.”
“We’d really appreciate it.”
“Perhaps not all my sister said about you is true Miles,” said Charles, offering his hand again as a way of saying goodbye.
“Nah! I’m really worse then she says.”
His business with Mr. Charles complete, Miles pushed open the door to Justin’s office to find the editor in chief sitting at his desk, staring into space.
“You don’t have another bloody scoop do you?” he asked sourly, when Justin realised the reporter was there. By way of reply Miles offered him the unsealed envelope, meaning for him to take it. Justin looked at it but did not bother to reach for it. He knew perfectly well what the envelope contained. It had happened often enough.
“Always knew you’d go,” he said sourly. “Chuck it in the in tray.” He indicated the near empty tray in the right hand corner of the desk which Miles had noticed in his first interview. “Have you put in any personal abuse.” Miles shook his head. “Two weeks from Friday alright? I wouldn’t want to keep you from your new employment niche too long.”
“Two weeks is fine.”
“You know, the reason I never bother to give pay rises is that people like you shoot through no matter how much extra we pay.” Miles opened his mouth to retort that at least the Bugle Group could treat its reporters like human beings, but shut it again without saying anything. Something told him that Justin was not interested in being lectured, yet again, about journalist’s rights. He dropped the envelope into the indicated tray, and then noticed the tray on the other side of Justin’s desk piled high with papers. On the top page of that pile he could just make out the word ‘resume’.
“I’ve found Angela,” Miles said.
“Yeah?” Justin was now more interested in the conversation. “Where’s she gone?”
“Singapore.”
“Singapore? How do you know she’s there?”
“She’s on TV. I saw her when I passed a shop selling entertainment systems, presenting a cable TV news bulletin in English, from Singapore. She’s just bright enough to read the auto queue, she’s had her teeth capped and she smiled at the end. They must have told her to smile. She looks good.”
“Was this Steve person there?”
“On the show? No, he’s selling ads for the station.”
“Suddenly you know all this?”
“I rang up the station and asked for a guy called Steve connected to Angela, saying I’d met him at a party. They said he was in a meeting, but if it was about advertising there were other people I could talk to.”
“Sounds like they didn’t get much money from that scam?”
“They got some but must’ve run through it. Told it often happens with fraudsters; they run though it just as quickly as they make it.”
Miles did not tell his boss that he also intended to curry a little favour with his police contacts by informing them of the whereabouts of Steven Gerard Coombes.
“You didn’t think much of her, did you?”
“Angela? There was nothing to think about. As a reporter she was hopeless.”
“Hmm! So where are you going?” Miles told him and for an instant, a split second, Justin’s eyes flashed with what Miles supposed was a look of envy. Then the look was gone and the editor in chief seemed bleaker and older. “It’s better to be on the way up, Miles,” he said after a moment, “than on the way down. Take it from me. At least you get to be on a real publication for a change.”
“Whadda you mean?” said Miles indignantly. “I am on a ‘real’ publication, I turned it into a real newspaper. Why don’t you make an effort to make sure it stays that way?”
Justin was startled at the response, but before he could think of a retort Miles walked out, leaving the editor in chief to his dusty souvenirs. He would tell Eve the news, then the others. Then he would debate the existence of beer with Jake but only a little, as he was also going to meet Anne to celebrate. There were no windows in the South Forest news room but outside, he knew, the day was bright.