FIC: The Eye of Calm (1/1, no coupling, Paris, PG-13)
Title: The Eye of Calm
Author: Nate
Spoilers: Early season six, without some of the more extreme ASP self-destruction going on; Paris is a sane editor, Logan is not the unbelievable savior of a newspaper, and she runs a well-functioning newsroom, not the ridiculous hornets' nest of Paris with sudden Asperser's that somehow made it into the actual series. Also, Rory never even entertained Logan's advances and he's just a forever frustrated friend.
Rating: PG-13 (discussions of a murder case, profanity)
Disclaimer: This story is not intended to resemble real-life events and has been structured so that the crime mentioned within is kept purposefully vague. Gilmore Girls is the property of Amy-Sherman Palladino, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone and Warner Bros. Television. All other copyrights and trademarks belong to their respective owners and no disrespect is meant or implied.
Archiving: My personal LJ and ff.net. Anyone else, ask first.
Summary: The story of a fellow student brings out the best in everyone at the Yale Daily News.
Author's Notes: This story is more written as a criticism of the hurried journalism seen on TV and the total disregard for calm reporting among cable news lately. This is sort of a response to the Yale case that has been in the news lately, but I found myself completely drawn more to the cool and collected coverage of the actual Daily News staff about the story than that of the local New Have/Hartford and national media. I wanted to write and express how Paris would have dealt with a story like this and the peripheral items around it, especially the other media as she calmly has her staff gather facts and she distills it into stories that give more insight into the story rather than repeating the same things over and over.
My thanks to all my readers over the years, and Danielle, my rock.
It was times like these Paris loathed the media so much.
All of the news requests, the surprise to anybody who was not in the Hartford-New Haven market that a college newspaper regularly handed the Register their collective ass every single day as far as circulation numbers. The big news organizations found themselves being scooped regularly on this story by student writers that she controlled and made damned sure would hold the information close to them to be only either handed to Yale and New Haven PD or held for publication the next day or on the breaking news blog she had immediately instituted upon her editorship.
She knew if Doyle was in that chair, he would wither. This would be the story that would get her the awards and validation she craved. The need to be in the spotlight should have overwhelmed her.
But at this point, her and Rory's hands were sore. Both of them seemed to be on the telephone from the moment they got into the office that day or clattering on the keyboard. Both of them pretty much had to give every media organization a basic idea of Yale and the environs.
First things first, she told the dead weight to get out.
"Huntzberger?"
"Yeah?" Logan looked up from what was either a shallow piece on an art piece he was probably just writing a first draft on or a critical game of Peggle where the spooky ball was in play.
"Don't bother coming in this week. We need serious writers here and I'm blowing out the paper."
"But--"
"GET!" She pointed towards the door, and the blonde heir directed a desperate look towards his friend.
Rory just shook her head and scoffed. "The last thing we need is your face being the front for us. Just come back next week. There's not much you can do."
As Logan cursed all the way out, Paris knew she was likely blowing any opportunity for Mitchum Huntzberger to ever donate anything to the Daily News again. But at the moment her strongest journalism had to be out front and center.
Every lead was followed, all bases were covered. Paris had ground rules that everyone was to follow to the letter.
"You see a producer for Court TV or Nancy Grace looking to get you into talking head mode, you walk away. Don't give 'em a chance to reel you in. All they're looking for is a scoop or something for you to fuck up and play over and over. I see any one of your souls on anything but 3, Newschannel 8, NBC 30 or 61, don't bother coming in the next day. We only talk to local media. The nationals can check the BNB like everybody else. I may allow a morning show window but it's not until I see how this coverage is directed. It goes tabloid, forget it. We're in the business to inform, not gossip and perpetuate the news cycle."
Everyone worked hard the next few days, every little detail followed, even an investigation into Yale PD and the security office to see how they could miss any of the small details. Paris was exhausted, sleeping in the office while Rory handled everything with the printers to make sure everything they could fit in got into the next day's editions. Indeed as expected Mitchum came by in day five in what he thought would be a successful attempt to oust Paris as editor, thinking the entire newsroom had been turning against her.
He couldn't have been more wrong. Elena Wong, the writer who had been awake 65 hours straight checking her phone every minute, begged to differ. "Yes, Paris can be hell. She can be very intense and there are times I want to run out that door and never look back. But this affects this entire campus and will for years to come. Your lazy excuse for a son pushed it off as something that could be handled in police blotter style. That kind of thinking is what's killing journalism. I'd rather be with an editor who charges at every story full-force than someone ever dependent on his heredity to maintain his lifestyle."
Coldly, the magnate stared daggers at the blonde editor and her brunette counterpart, who had spurned the advances of his son much to his chagrin. "I guess the Herald will receive more of my attention." If he thought that threat had any bite, Paris was sure to shut him down.
"Our competition is not the Herald. Please, Mr. Huntzberger. Don't come in here and threaten me by saying you'll move Logan to a newspaper this entire campus considers a joke. The Onion outranks the Herald. We're here to report the news, not measure our cock size against some alternative daily that thinks out-smutting Savage Love with their own explicit sex columnist is a viable business strategy. You go ahead and take your money to the Herald. The Daily News doesn't need it."
The man walked out completely humbled. Rory and Paris along with everybody else continued to work the story as hard as they could.
During the eighth day the first reports came in. The newsroom was girded, ready to report the story with clarity and accuracy. Rory was allowed to do an interview with WTIC radio, while Elena was given a GMA window. Paris kept herself sparse from the media eye, checking out all the details, double-checking all of her sources. She felt the fatigue and the emotions of the coverage overwhelm her, but she didn't back down.
Finally at 8:45pm she had been given the go-ahead by the dean to publish the details that had been learned that evening and just fully confirmed with the ME office. Knowing the whole world was watching she gathered up everything and wrote a terse summary for the breaking news blog, then did a quick edit of Elena's rundown and Rory's timeline of the events. Glenn even proved himself worthy for the first time in the eyes of his editor-in-chief with an opinion piece of how campus security needed to be tightened. Details kept coming in. The printer was told to wait. By 12:35am the final save to the next morning's paper had been made and it was rolling off the presses.
Paris sat in a chair in the newsroom, her sleeves rolled up and her blouse wrinkled, eyes dreary, desperate for sleep. Rory was down to her sweat-soaked tank top and not doing much better. Fifteen staff in the room they watched on TV as the information they learned and posted four hours before was confirmed by all four local newsrooms and the news channels, with a caveat.
"They found her," she said simply. "It wasn't pretty and the details are grim. We learned it first, but we held it until after the next of kin had been notified. Notice that the idiots at Nancy Grace and that paragon of accuracy Geraldo ran with an incorrect story and they got it deadly wrong. They speculated all week about what occurred and who may have done it. We refused to implicate anybody as a suspect. I'm damned glad that we did because one mistake would be this paper's Waterloo and I'm proud of all of you that her family's privacy was respected."
She paused to compose herself, a hitch in her voice. "I talked to the mother and obviously she is grief-stricken. We have a statement from her that expresses her thanks to the university and the students for their support. It's going in tomorrow's editions and when they do want to talk, they have given us the privilege to publish an interview. It could be in weeks, months. Even next year. But for now, we focus on the investigation, and the grief of the moment. Leave the hyperbole and speculation for the Nightbeat team. What we need to concentrate on is honoring this young woman and make it clear that this will not shake our campus's foundations." Her voice was tight and strained as she finished. "Thank you." With that she left to head back into her office and shed the tears she had been holding in since Yale PD had told her hours before that the case was likely soon to end.
When her and Rory would talk later at the apartment, they wished they could do a few things much differently, knowing that there still had been some mistakes despite their impeccable reporting on the subject. There were sure to be some more bumps ahead, some attacks from the papers who found something wrong with every YDN edition. She was prepared for an O'Reilly Factor producer to ambush her soon to ask why she didn't allow the more tawdry details to go public as the public had the 'right to know'. But Paris had proven the editors past of the Daily News proud. As she went to sleep that evening, she prayed for the family of the victim that they would find peace, and found strength in herself to make sure her entire newsroom would see fit that the case would see justice in a way she knew her faculty advisor at the Franklin would be proud of.
"This isn't my story," she whispered as she turned off the light for a restless sleep. "I only write it."
THE END.
Author: Nate
Spoilers: Early season six, without some of the more extreme ASP self-destruction going on; Paris is a sane editor, Logan is not the unbelievable savior of a newspaper, and she runs a well-functioning newsroom, not the ridiculous hornets' nest of Paris with sudden Asperser's that somehow made it into the actual series. Also, Rory never even entertained Logan's advances and he's just a forever frustrated friend.
Rating: PG-13 (discussions of a murder case, profanity)
Disclaimer: This story is not intended to resemble real-life events and has been structured so that the crime mentioned within is kept purposefully vague. Gilmore Girls is the property of Amy-Sherman Palladino, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone and Warner Bros. Television. All other copyrights and trademarks belong to their respective owners and no disrespect is meant or implied.
Archiving: My personal LJ and ff.net. Anyone else, ask first.
Summary: The story of a fellow student brings out the best in everyone at the Yale Daily News.
Author's Notes: This story is more written as a criticism of the hurried journalism seen on TV and the total disregard for calm reporting among cable news lately. This is sort of a response to the Yale case that has been in the news lately, but I found myself completely drawn more to the cool and collected coverage of the actual Daily News staff about the story than that of the local New Have/Hartford and national media. I wanted to write and express how Paris would have dealt with a story like this and the peripheral items around it, especially the other media as she calmly has her staff gather facts and she distills it into stories that give more insight into the story rather than repeating the same things over and over.
My thanks to all my readers over the years, and Danielle, my rock.
It was times like these Paris loathed the media so much.
All of the news requests, the surprise to anybody who was not in the Hartford-New Haven market that a college newspaper regularly handed the Register their collective ass every single day as far as circulation numbers. The big news organizations found themselves being scooped regularly on this story by student writers that she controlled and made damned sure would hold the information close to them to be only either handed to Yale and New Haven PD or held for publication the next day or on the breaking news blog she had immediately instituted upon her editorship.
She knew if Doyle was in that chair, he would wither. This would be the story that would get her the awards and validation she craved. The need to be in the spotlight should have overwhelmed her.
But at this point, her and Rory's hands were sore. Both of them seemed to be on the telephone from the moment they got into the office that day or clattering on the keyboard. Both of them pretty much had to give every media organization a basic idea of Yale and the environs.
First things first, she told the dead weight to get out.
"Huntzberger?"
"Yeah?" Logan looked up from what was either a shallow piece on an art piece he was probably just writing a first draft on or a critical game of Peggle where the spooky ball was in play.
"Don't bother coming in this week. We need serious writers here and I'm blowing out the paper."
"But--"
"GET!" She pointed towards the door, and the blonde heir directed a desperate look towards his friend.
Rory just shook her head and scoffed. "The last thing we need is your face being the front for us. Just come back next week. There's not much you can do."
As Logan cursed all the way out, Paris knew she was likely blowing any opportunity for Mitchum Huntzberger to ever donate anything to the Daily News again. But at the moment her strongest journalism had to be out front and center.
Every lead was followed, all bases were covered. Paris had ground rules that everyone was to follow to the letter.
"You see a producer for Court TV or Nancy Grace looking to get you into talking head mode, you walk away. Don't give 'em a chance to reel you in. All they're looking for is a scoop or something for you to fuck up and play over and over. I see any one of your souls on anything but 3, Newschannel 8, NBC 30 or 61, don't bother coming in the next day. We only talk to local media. The nationals can check the BNB like everybody else. I may allow a morning show window but it's not until I see how this coverage is directed. It goes tabloid, forget it. We're in the business to inform, not gossip and perpetuate the news cycle."
Everyone worked hard the next few days, every little detail followed, even an investigation into Yale PD and the security office to see how they could miss any of the small details. Paris was exhausted, sleeping in the office while Rory handled everything with the printers to make sure everything they could fit in got into the next day's editions. Indeed as expected Mitchum came by in day five in what he thought would be a successful attempt to oust Paris as editor, thinking the entire newsroom had been turning against her.
He couldn't have been more wrong. Elena Wong, the writer who had been awake 65 hours straight checking her phone every minute, begged to differ. "Yes, Paris can be hell. She can be very intense and there are times I want to run out that door and never look back. But this affects this entire campus and will for years to come. Your lazy excuse for a son pushed it off as something that could be handled in police blotter style. That kind of thinking is what's killing journalism. I'd rather be with an editor who charges at every story full-force than someone ever dependent on his heredity to maintain his lifestyle."
Coldly, the magnate stared daggers at the blonde editor and her brunette counterpart, who had spurned the advances of his son much to his chagrin. "I guess the Herald will receive more of my attention." If he thought that threat had any bite, Paris was sure to shut him down.
"Our competition is not the Herald. Please, Mr. Huntzberger. Don't come in here and threaten me by saying you'll move Logan to a newspaper this entire campus considers a joke. The Onion outranks the Herald. We're here to report the news, not measure our cock size against some alternative daily that thinks out-smutting Savage Love with their own explicit sex columnist is a viable business strategy. You go ahead and take your money to the Herald. The Daily News doesn't need it."
The man walked out completely humbled. Rory and Paris along with everybody else continued to work the story as hard as they could.
During the eighth day the first reports came in. The newsroom was girded, ready to report the story with clarity and accuracy. Rory was allowed to do an interview with WTIC radio, while Elena was given a GMA window. Paris kept herself sparse from the media eye, checking out all the details, double-checking all of her sources. She felt the fatigue and the emotions of the coverage overwhelm her, but she didn't back down.
Finally at 8:45pm she had been given the go-ahead by the dean to publish the details that had been learned that evening and just fully confirmed with the ME office. Knowing the whole world was watching she gathered up everything and wrote a terse summary for the breaking news blog, then did a quick edit of Elena's rundown and Rory's timeline of the events. Glenn even proved himself worthy for the first time in the eyes of his editor-in-chief with an opinion piece of how campus security needed to be tightened. Details kept coming in. The printer was told to wait. By 12:35am the final save to the next morning's paper had been made and it was rolling off the presses.
Paris sat in a chair in the newsroom, her sleeves rolled up and her blouse wrinkled, eyes dreary, desperate for sleep. Rory was down to her sweat-soaked tank top and not doing much better. Fifteen staff in the room they watched on TV as the information they learned and posted four hours before was confirmed by all four local newsrooms and the news channels, with a caveat.
"They found her," she said simply. "It wasn't pretty and the details are grim. We learned it first, but we held it until after the next of kin had been notified. Notice that the idiots at Nancy Grace and that paragon of accuracy Geraldo ran with an incorrect story and they got it deadly wrong. They speculated all week about what occurred and who may have done it. We refused to implicate anybody as a suspect. I'm damned glad that we did because one mistake would be this paper's Waterloo and I'm proud of all of you that her family's privacy was respected."
She paused to compose herself, a hitch in her voice. "I talked to the mother and obviously she is grief-stricken. We have a statement from her that expresses her thanks to the university and the students for their support. It's going in tomorrow's editions and when they do want to talk, they have given us the privilege to publish an interview. It could be in weeks, months. Even next year. But for now, we focus on the investigation, and the grief of the moment. Leave the hyperbole and speculation for the Nightbeat team. What we need to concentrate on is honoring this young woman and make it clear that this will not shake our campus's foundations." Her voice was tight and strained as she finished. "Thank you." With that she left to head back into her office and shed the tears she had been holding in since Yale PD had told her hours before that the case was likely soon to end.
When her and Rory would talk later at the apartment, they wished they could do a few things much differently, knowing that there still had been some mistakes despite their impeccable reporting on the subject. There were sure to be some more bumps ahead, some attacks from the papers who found something wrong with every YDN edition. She was prepared for an O'Reilly Factor producer to ambush her soon to ask why she didn't allow the more tawdry details to go public as the public had the 'right to know'. But Paris had proven the editors past of the Daily News proud. As she went to sleep that evening, she prayed for the family of the victim that they would find peace, and found strength in herself to make sure her entire newsroom would see fit that the case would see justice in a way she knew her faculty advisor at the Franklin would be proud of.
"This isn't my story," she whispered as she turned off the light for a restless sleep. "I only write it."
THE END.