Death By Deadline - Excerpts from the Novel
From: Larry Kane
To: Readers
“Death by Deadline”, based in Philadelphia, is fiction. The characters are not real people. But the premise, the need for local news to be first, at whatever expense, is. This is a fly-on-the wall look at good and awful broadcast journalists, filled with betrayal, sexual tension, high hopes, heroes, and tragically, murder by newscast. It is a mystery thriller that traps a half million people.. Fiction? Yes. Reality? Maybe on some dark day in the future, if, indeed it is not too late.
NEWS DIRECTOR PASSES ON MURDER COVERAGE
“Isn’t that a rundown, sh…ty neighborhood?” she says, her hands gesturing in the air, a conductor without form.
“Yeah–but we’ve got two men critically wounded.”
Pierce puts her hands on her hips and answers in her cigarette-scarred, gravelly voice, “Bag it. Nobody gives a f.. about that godforsaken, bombed-out neighborhood. Shootings there are a dime a dozen. It’s not worth a reporter. I’m not biased, mind you. I just know what sells tickets to TV in this town.”
As the men on Cambria Street gasp their final breaths, Barb, a closet racist, knows that most viewers in the suburbs don’t care….
RIGHTEOUS ANCHOR WITH A PROBLEM
After listening to the boss’s tirade, reporter Byrne opens the top drawer of the supply cabinet, grabs two pencils, and walks over to the electronic pencil sharpener bolted to the wall of the assignment desk next to the maps. I have to hold back a smile. Every time Byrne gets tense (usually about a story or when there’s a new sexy reported in the room) , he inserts a pencil in sharpener. He seems calmed by the sound of the machine slicing through the wood and the lead, the buzz of that little saw drilling in the narrow hole inside the machine.
MY CONTINUING NARRATIVE FROM ICU
My arms and legs are confined close to my body. My body hurts so badly that my eyes keep closing...
The man in the fatigues has his weapon balanced against the wall. He’s talking on a cell phone. ”No way, that many?” he says. “No f…ing way. I have to call home. My God, I hope the kids made it back okay.” What is he talking about? And why is the United States Secretary of Homeland Security entering my room?
MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR VICTIM OF DEATH BY DEADLINE
“I want to begin this address with a moment of silence for the family of Anthony Perez. He was not just a victim of mistaken identity, of a crime perpetrated by a gang of killers. He was also a victim of reckless journalists who wreak havoc with information. Who knows what catastrophes we could create with bad information? (The reader of the novel will soon see the trap set for the unthinkable.)
RECKLESS ANCHOR CELEBRATES
“Well, ’fess up, Danny, because we are walking a tightrope. You killed that kid…
“You are wrong. I’m the goddamned franchise anchor. I will live on, because I’m the best. Do you think anyone knows or cares about Ned Lemond, the man who insisted that we show the video? So the kid is dead. But we are also two days from the ratings. We hit the jackpot.”
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