Bryan Lancing had been home in bed watching After Hours, ABS’ late-night talk show when everything changed. He remembered picking up his phone to call the network to find out what had happened, but otherwise, most of it was a blur. He remembered a woman making outlandish claims about being God, which he had found to be incredibly common over his years in news coverage. What was not common was allowing such a person time on a major network program, and what was unprecedented was taking over other channels to do so.
When he found himself kneeling on the bed watching a test pattern, the first thing he did was call for a car to get him down to the network. Before he could make his next call, his assistant got through to him, anticipating his needs already.
“Mr. Lancing, I’ve sent texts to the members of the editorial board, requesting they report to a meeting immediately,” Robbie said once the call connected. “I have alerted some on the legal staff that they may be required to join remotely if you decide they are needed.”
Bryan thought about that briefly as he got dressed. “No, not at first. If it comes to that, I’ll get Janet on a call. Is everyone going to make it in?”
“I don’t have any replies yet, but I will keep you updated.”
“Thanks, Robbie, I’ll see you there,” Bryan said as he hung up. He could hear his wife and the kids moving around down in the great room. They had been watching some movie when he headed into bed, although he thought it would have been long over. He was buttoning his shirt when the door opened and Kitty came in. “What’s going on?” she asked as she saw him nearly dressed.
“Something weird happened with the network feed, and the division is going to need to address it. I’m going to head into the office now and put together a statement with the rest of the board, but I’ll come home after that. I’ll try to be back for breakfast,” he finished, although he knew it was unlikely he’d come back home once he was there.
“Is this about the woman on Tonight!?” she asked, and he stopped in the middle of tying his tie.
“Did you and the kids stay up and watch it after the movie?” he asked, the entire thing a little confusing as he knew she didn’t watch the show.
“No, something happened to the streaming services and we were kicked over to live TV. I would have changed it over, but I just…didn’t?” She looked confused by it all, which sent a chill down Bryan’s spine. She had met Johnny and didn’t like him, why would she watch?
A text came through on his phone, indicating his driver would be arriving shortly, so he put the thought aside. “I’ll see if I can learn anything about that. I’ll let you know at breakfast,” he said, promising himself he’d try to make it back home today. He kissed her as he grabbed a jacket and headed towards the door.
As he settled in the back seat of the Cadillac that the ride-sharing company had sent, a text from Robbie came through that said, “everyone but Mark responded on the way”. He put his phone in the charging slot and told it to call Janet. He had an hour to try to figure out what he wanted the editorial stance to be before he got to the office, and he had the feeling he couldn’t waste a minute. Best to get an opinion from legal first.
“Then come up with one!”
Bryan arrived at the meeting just in time to hear Dan Jurgen, the SVP for digital and streaming content, practically screaming at the other two people in the room. “Dan, relax,” he said as he moved to the chair at the head of the table.
The other two were Katherine Wolcott, SVP for newsgathering, and Sanja Ilic, SVP for editorial quality. Sanja had been about to respond in kind, but stopped when Bryan walked in. “Any word from Colin or Mark, yet?” Bryan asked the group.
“Not yet. Colin is a bit farther than you are, but I would have thought Mark would be the first one here since he lives in the city,” Katherine said.
“Well, I don’t think we’ll wait. It would have been nice to get Mark here to get the reporters perspective, but we can push on.” He pulled his phone out and sent a quick text to Robbie, asking him to check and make sure Mark was OK. A thumbs up came back nearly instantly, and Bryan set the phone down on the table as he sat. “OK, what’s the argument about?”
Dan and Sanja started to talk at once, and Bryan raised a hand for quiet. “Dan, I heard you pretty clearly when I came in, so let’s let Sanja respond, OK?”
Dan leaned back, body language screaming that he didn’t want to, but it was good enough. Sanja collected herself briefly, then began. “We are discussing how we want to handle Kashmir on the upcoming broadcasts. We have been unable to contact any of our newsdesks in the region, so I am urging restraint in what we say until we can get some actual confirmation.”
Bryan understood where this was going – while most of the postings he had seen in the drive in from Darien had been about Anastasia and what she had said, the situation in Kashmir was still being discussed quite a bit, especially in government and financial circles. He imagined it would become a bigger deal as the markets came closer to opening.
“OK, Dan, what lack of restraint is vexing quality today?”
“Now is not the time for restraint, Bryan. The internet has already decided that nuclear war has broken out, and the only way we are going to be relevant at all is if we report that, too. If we sit here hemming and hawing about getting confirmation from our sources, we’ll be broadcasting fluff while everyone else is talking World War III,” Bryan watched the other two as Dan finished, noting that Sanja was vehemently opposed while Katherine seemed to be leaning to agreeing with Dan.
Sanja spoke up and said, “We cannot begin to report on World War III breaking out without confirmation, no matter what the internet is claiming. This is information that will incite panic on the streets if we broadcast it, regardless of whether it is true or not. Random bloggers making such a claim might get a few people worked up around the world – if we make the claim and are wrong, we’ll be responsible for riots and will lose any credibility we have as a news source.”
Dan scoffed at that. “You’re still living in the old world, Sanja. We aren’t an ivory tower that people trust any more, and haven’t been in a decade. We’re a place where retirees turn to get news because they can’t figure out how to get it from somewhere else. And every time we end up scooped by some random influencer with a Tik Tok account, we become less and less relevant.”
“And if we simply pick up on what they say and run it without our own investigation, then all we are is a mouthpiece for them. How is that going to improve our standing? We’re better off hoping they’re wrong and airing what actually happened when we learn it,” Sanja replied.
Bryan looked at Katherine, who had been fiddling with a pencil since he came in. “Katherine, what’s your take? Do we have people on the ground who can get us answers?”
Katherine set the pencil down and said, “Right now, no. I have been unable to contact anyone in India or China – I’m not even sure if there is anyone in India to be contacted. I have received some reports from offices in Japan and Israel, but they have not been as helpful as I would hope. There have been reports of unusual seismic activity, but they haven’t been able to figure out what that means.”
“It means nukes have been exploding over there!” Dan shouted. Bryan gave him a look, and he calmed back down slightly. “Everything we know is consistent with them blowing themselves up over Kashmir, and we need to get ahead of this.”
“That’s not true,” Sanja said. “There is an enormous piece of evidence contradicting it – the US government has not yet done anything. We do know that the President has been meeting with the Joint Chiefs in the situation room, rather than the bunker. If a nuclear war had broken out, protocol would get her out of the White House, either into the bunker or on Air Force One.”
“Then what else is it, Sanja? They’ve been on the verge for months now, and we know that the G8 leaders have been meeting to discuss it regularly. So when the entire region goes dark and nearby regions report seismic activity that would be consistent with a nuclear exchange, what else can it be?”
Katherine answered, simply saying, “Anastasia.”
Dan stared at her for a second before saying, “Oh for fuck’s sake, Kath, you’re not seriously buying into some publicity stunt?”
“Enough,” Bryan said with just enough force to get the others to stop. “We’re not here to talk about Anastasia – until the lawyers that are already meeting in the corporate offices figure out what we are doing about our broadcast being hijacked last night, we are not to address Anastasia at all. Not even a mention of her existence.”
The others all started talking in response, but Bryan held up his hand. “I said, we’re not doing it, and that’s from legal. I heard from them in the way in and it was made quite clear to me that we cannot address it in any way.”
Sanja looked around the table to see that everyone was going to swallow that. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said Bryan,” she said as she gathered up the few things in front of her. “And that isn’t an easy bar to clear, but you’ve done it.”
“Sanja-,” Bryan responded, but she kept going.
“No, Bryan, I’m not going to settle down or whatever the hell you were going to say. You used to be a journalist, but you haven’t been that in years. We have a once in a century story going on here, a story that every decent journalist in the world is already pursuing, and you aren’t going to do anything with it because of the legal department? And not even because you are worried about breaking laws, but because they network wants to make sure they are in a better place to sue!”
“I didn’t say that, Sanja, just that they don’t want us talking about it yet.”
“Do you think I’m stupid, Bryan, is that it? You think you can gaslight me into not knowing what you meant when you said we can’t do it until they figure out what to do about being hijacked? There’s a reason every one of us is in this room, and it’s because we’re smart and good at our jobs. I’m done with this bullshit. We used to be trusted to deliver the news fairly to the American People. Now we can’t be trusted for anything, and that is 100% on you and the damned lawyers.” Sanja picked up her bag and walked out of the room without looking back. The rest of the room remained quiet for half a minute as Bryan stared at the door, the tips of his ears burning red.
Eventually, Dan broke the silence. “For the record, I think not talking about Anastasia is the right call. NBN has the scoop already, and we’d be better off getting our own in the form of Kashmir.”
Katherine rolled her eyes but said nothing. Bryan looked over at her and said, “Kath, you’re newsgathering. If we can’t gather the news directly, what’s your suggestion?”
She tapped her pen a few more times, then seemed to decide. “I think we run with it. I think we go on the air first thing and inform the people that we have reports of nuclear war breaking out in Kashmir, although the extent is unknown at this time. Blame the exchange itself for damaging communications and promise more information as we know it. Deflect any questions about Anastasia as frivolous at the present time and try to refocus to the war. And find a team we can send directly there to learn anything we can.”
Dan shook his head slightly. “Half measures about limited exchanges and seeking more information are not going to do it. We need to come out strong and hard and push this. Here’s the thing, Bryan – this is our one shot at relevancy, and half measures won’t do it. If we say we’re gathering information, and one of the 24-hour cable networks goes all in on nuclear war, people are going to turn to them. By the time we catch up with newsgathering, whoever that is will own the cycle and we won’t get it back. We have one advantage over them, and that is that we broadcast over the air and are familiar to people. But once they change the channel, that advantage is flushed away. We come out and say without hesitation that there was a war and give as much information as we can glean from any source we have, including random Tik Tokers.”
Katherine sighed and said, “And if we’re wrong? If two days from now we’ve been beating the drum of nuclear war, and we find out that it was an earthquake? Or Anastasia is real?”
Dan smiled. “Honestly – so what? If Anastasia is real, then NBN has already won thanks to that stunt last night. We have no prayer of coming out on top in that case. But let’s look at the possibility that it turns out to not be a nuclear exchange. Even if that’s true, and we find out in a few days that none of it happened, we still had all those eyes on us for those few days. As we get more information in, we start to shift towards what we can verify, get some experts on who can talk about the lack of communication and how that can be explained by EM pulse, or other ways. Play it right, and we can also be leading on debunking the nuclear war story. Play it wrong, and we have to say on air that we screwed up. Do that at 1 am on a Friday, and then move on like it never happened, and what’s the damage. How many anchors have told stories of personally being shot at and never suffered any consequences when it was revealed? Hell, the governor’s brother was basically caught sexually assaulting someone and is now an anchor on NNN. They’re going to be more pissed that we made a good faith effort to report what was going on and got it wrong?”
Katherine shrugged, having nothing to say in response. Bryan gave it some thought before glancing at his watch. “We’re about an hour until the morning news comes on. I’ll come up with something by then.” He rubbed his temples, thinking about the likelihood that he would make it home for breakfast. “I’ll let you know what I decide. If anything new comes up, I’ll be in my office.”
