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Resume class versus Newsroom
(Lights rise on six or seven desks facing a large screen
displaying a PowerPoint slide which reads “Understanding Your
Value as a Corporate Contributor”. At the desks sit a variety of
people, some bored, some vaguely hostile, one woman knits. In
front sits former P-I science reporter Matt Nilsen. The instructor,
dressed in a smart suit, addresses the class with verve and
optimism:)
INSTRUCTOR: So what I’d like to do now is brainstorm some answers to these key questions
about your role at the P-I. First, how did you fulfill your company’s mission?
(The instructor clicks a remote to swoop this question onto
the screen in some nifty PowerPointy way.)
Let’s put some answers down. I don’t need full sentences here, just jot down all the
things that come to mind about the ways you fulfilled the P-I’s corporate mission.
(The instructor pauses while the students write down their
responses. Matt doesn’t move. Instead he sighs and stares blankly
ahead.)
Okay. Good, now to the same thing for this question:
(Again the instructor clicks the remote such that the
question appears simultaneously with the verbal asking.)
How did you contribute to your company’s bottom line?
(Again a pause, again Matt does nothing.)
So, Matt, I see you haven’t written anything. You must be one of those guys who keeps
it all in his head.
MATT: Nope.
INSTRUCTOR: So what would you say to the first question?
MATT: Nothing.
INSTRUCTOR: Nothing?
MATT: I have no clue how I fulfilled the corporate mission. I guess I sort of hope I didn’t.
(A few of the other classmates chuckle at this.)
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INSTRUCTOR: Okay, how bout the second. I know you contributed to the P-I’s bottom line
somehow or they wouldn’t have kept you on staff.
MATT: They didn’t keep me on staff, remember?
INSTRUCTOR: Yes, well, how long did you work there prior to being laid off?
MATT: 26 years.
INSTRUCTOR: Wow! Impressive. So during that how did you contribute to the P-I’s bottom
line?
MATT: I have no clue. What was their bottom line? None of us know. The Hearst company is
private. We never knew squat about the financials.
INSTRUCTOR: Well, be that as it may. You still contributed to making the paper a profitable
entity.
MATT: You think? That’s a hell of an accusation. Can you back it up?
(General laughter. The class has suddenly become
interesting. Various people mumble encouragement to Matt.)
INSTRUCTOR: Hey Matt, I’m not the enemy. I’m just trying to help you build your resume.
MATT: Why?
INSTRUCTOR: “Why?”
MATT: Yeah, I mean it’s not like we’re from some company that went belly up and we’ll be
looking for jobs at a similar company. All the papers are going belly up. No one’s hiring
reporters.
INSTRUCTOR: Well, that maybe true, but I look around this room and see a bunch of good
people—
MATT: Good people? I just said we’re reporters. (laughter) Have you ever even been in a
newsroom?
INSTRUCTOR: No, I’m sorry to say I haven’t. What was it like?
MATT: Well, (looking around) it wasn’t too much different from this: bunch of people sitting at
desks, only it wasn’t so sullen and silent. There was chaos. Life.
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(The lights shift and the class becomes the P-I newsroom.
A bustling cacophony. During the following mishmash of phone
calls, the lights sharpen on the individual reporter talking, while
the rest of the newsroom continues in an animated murmur.)
REPORTER 1: P-I, this is Lemonchek.
CALLER 1: Yeah, the library’s on fire.
REPORTER 1: What?
CALLER 1: The library’s on fire.
REPORTER 1: Which library? Where?
CALLER 1: You know, the one that looks all fancy, near the lake.
REPORTER 1: The Green Lake Library?
CALLER 1: Yeah, maybe that’s it.
REPORTER 1: It’s on fire?!
CALLER 1: Yup.
REPORTER 1: Did you call 9-1-1?
CALLER 1: Nope. I figgered you guys would want to know.
REPORTER 1: We do, we’ll be over. But for chrissake, hang up and call 9-1-1!
REPORTER 2: P-I this is Schneider.
CALLER 2: Susy Schneider?
REPORTER 2: That’s right.
CALLER 2: What makes you think you know fuck all about music, Susy Schneider?
REPORTER 3: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, this is Chris Dunlow.
CALLER 3: Hey, what time is M*A*S*H on tonight?
MATT: P-I, this is Nilsen.
JOHN: Matt, it’s John White.
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MATT: Ah, well, hey John, haven’t heard from you in a couple weeks.
JOHN: Yeah, I’ve been busy.
MATT: What can I do for you John?
JOHN: You can follow up the leads I gave you.
REPORTER 4: P-I. Phelan.
CALLER 4: Hi, Jerry.
REPORTER 4: Hi Mrs. Jorgensen.
CALLER 4: How are you, Jerry?
REPORTER 4: I’m fine, Mrs. Jorgensen. How are you?
CALLER 4: Oh, I’m fine. Still getting old, you know.
REPORTER 4: Oh, nonsense, you’re seventy – nine years young, if you’re a day, dear.
REPORTER 3: You’re calling the news room of an award-winning major daily newspaper of a
major Pacific Northwest City to find out what time a sitcom rerun airs?
MATT: Yeah, John, like I told you before I don’t think my editor’s gonna buy that I’m gonna
break open a whole new angle on the Kennedy assassination.
JOHN: But you will. Follow those leads I gave you. Do you still have them?
MATT: Oh yeah. (He waves a random magazine in the air, maybe it’s a HUSTLER.) I got ‘em
right here in my file.
JOHN: Good.
CALLER 3: Look, can you just tell me when M*A*S*H is on?
(Dunlow opens a paper and looks up the listing.)
REPORTER 3: 7:30 and 11:00 PM on Channel 16.
CALLER 3: Thanks!
REPORTER 3: You’re welcome.
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MATT: John, what makes you think that these leads aren’t just straws I’d be grasping at.
JOHN: Because I was involved.
MATT: You were involved?
JOHN: That’s right.
MATT: You were involved in the Kennedy assassination.
JOHN: That’s right.
MATT: Mr. John White, co-conspirator to highest treason.
JOHN: Obviously I haven’t given you my real name.
MATT: Obviously not.
CALLER 4: Oh, Jerry. There’s nothing young about me anymore. My feet are tingly all the
time and I can’t remember anything important, though I can remember who lived in every single
house on either side of my street in Ballard seventy years ago.
REPORTER 4: Isn’t that something.
MATT: But here’s what I wanna know, John?
JOHN: What’s that Matt?
MATT: We have some pretty state of the art call tracking here in the newsroom. We can pretty
much track where anyone’s calling from. As you can imagine, that comes in handy when trying
to track down a source.
JOHN: I can imagine.
MATT: But whenever you call all I get on my display is “Caller Unknown”.
JOHN: I see.
MATT: Where do you live John?
JOHN: I live close, Matt. Let’s say I’m in your regular subscription radius.
MATT: Western Washington.
JOHN: Sure. Western Washington.
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MATT: Care to be more specific? Hell, I’ll even buy you a cup of coffee if you wanted to meet
and tell me your real name and why you’re so obsessed with Kennedy’s murder. There might be
a story in that.
JOHN: I’m not interested in that, Matt.
MATT: Why all the mystery, John?
JOHN: Follow the leads, Matt.
MATT: Okay, John.
JOHN: Talk to you soon.
CALLER 4: You know what I wish? I wish I could remember my social security number. They
ask you for that all the time these days. I have to keep it on a slip of paper next the phone.
REPORTER 4: Okay, Mrs. Jorgensen. I have to get back to work now.
CALLER 4: Okay, Jerry. You have a good night. Talk to you soon.
REPORTER 4: I look forward to it, Mrs. Jorgenson.
(The news room turns back into a the resume class.)
MATT: Hey, Jerry. When was the last time you talked to Mrs. Jorgensen?
REPORTER 4: Not since we were all shitcanned, Matt.
MATT: Who’s Mrs. Jorgensen gonna call now?
REPORTER 3: She can call the Times.
MATT: The Times. Like they give a shit.
REPORTER 3: Who cares? That’s not the job of a reporter, to talk to every lonely old lady
looking for a little conversation.
REPORTER 4: Sometimes they have leads.
REPORTER 3: If they got leads, they can email them to the on-line news desk.
MATT: Email the on-line news desk? Like Mrs. Jorgenson has email? Like she’s going to be
browsing the on-line edition from her what? Blackberry? A whole generation of readers is flatout shit-outta-luck. They don’t have computers. They don’t know from on-line news. Everyone
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acts like these people are worthless. They might as well be dead for all anyone cares, even
though a lot of ‘em have decades to go.
REPORTER 3: They were a nuisance.
MATT: Yes they were. And so were we. We were reporters. Paid nuisances. Yeah, hey! Can
I put that in my resume?
[Possible break to insert other story. Sort of like “continued on E3” ]
INSTRUCTOR: I want you to try to get out of the pigeon hole you’ve put yourself in. Forget
for a second that the word “reporter” exists. I’m from Mars. I want you to tell me what you’re
good at. Without using jargon, describe your skill set. What it is at the basic level you do.
MATT: You wanna know what we’re good at? My basic skill set. Here’s what we can do for
you, over and over, day after day, at level of consistency and quality you won’t find anywhere
else.
We can go into a room full of powerful people, and not know more than say, maybe, one
to ten percent to of what’s actually going on and start asking questions. Annoying questions,
follow up questions to the annoying questions, questions that make those powerful people
uncomfortable, maybe even push them off guard, so we get a real answer instead of something
canned. A good telling quote always helps too.. Then we take what we get, turn around, run to a
key board and in 25 minutes type you a story that will be read by hundreds of thousands of
people the next day and then they get the chance to tear into it, looking for any miniscule error of
fact or presentation, and boy they’ll let you know about it it, too. So you pray that you haven’t
fucked it up too bad, and then when that’s all over, we do it again. And again. Every frickin’
day.
Look. I’m the last person in the world to praise reporters. It sticks in my throat for
chrissakes. We’re annoying. We’re generally not well liked. By anyone. We don’t even really
like each other. But when you close down a P-I you take off the streets about a hundred people
whose full-time job it is to go around asking questions.
[House lights go up. Everyone on stage but one goes into the
audience and starts asking questions.]
Example question template.
What’s your name?
Where you from?
What do you do for a living?
What’s the story?
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Follow up: What’s something you know about that’s
happened or is happening that you think more people
should know about?
If the audience member hesitates the reporter immediately
moves on, saying something, like “Never mind. I need a story.
You [next person]. What’s your name? Where you from?
What’s the story?
After about five minutes the reporters go back on the stage and
each pitch their best story vying for “A1”. The editor white
boards the selection process and a front page story is selected.
Then someone on stage writes the lede for the story. We watch
them put it together on the large projected screen.
[Break to insert other story.]
(Lights up on Bill Gates, sitting at a desk. Matt Nilson sits
at a chair in front of the desk. Another woman, a PR rep for
Gates, sits near by.)
BILL: Have a seat, Matt.
MATT: Thanks. And thanks for agreeing to meet with me in person, Mr. Gates.
BILL: Oh, come on, Matt. You can call me Bill.
MATT: Okay then, Bill.
BILL: And I’m happy to meet with reporters in person if they’re really willing to start reporting
on the issues of global health but getting you guys interested is like pulling teeth. Every year 1.9
million children die because of diarrhea - completely curable. . That’s a holocaust-sized
catastrophe every six years. And the media just doesn’t care. All we get is Britney spears and
plane crashes.
MATT: Well, I’m sure if you tossed us reporters even a small percentage of the 750 million
you’re spending on this you could get diarrhea on the front page.
(Awkward pause. Bill looks over at his PR rep.)
PR REP: That’s inappropriate, Matt.
MATT: It was a joke, Shelly. We can’t joke here?
PR REP: We were talking about kids dying, Matt. I don’t think there’s anything funny about
that.
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MATT (to Gates): This is what I’m talking about.
BILL: What’s that?
MATT: Your media folks need to loosen up. They don’t need to control everything. I mean the
hoops I had to jump through to get this interview, them trying to make me feel like I’d won the
lottery just to get to talk to you when all I’m trying to do is tell the story of your global health
initiative, a story that I’m pretty sure you want told, right?
BILL: That’s right, Matt.
MATT: You know, I was at one of your events last month, this ice cream social for the kids and
I had biked over from my house. Had the bike pants on and the helmet. I was just there for the
event No notebook, nothing. And these people followed me around like I was a shoplifter the
whole time I was there. And I was just there for the ice cream . I mean, you want to help
people, right?
BILL: That’s right, Matt.
MATT: Wouldn’t that be easier if people knew what you were doing? And wouldn’t that be
easier if I could just get the story without your media folks trying to control it. If you trust
people, they tend to like you naturally.
PR REP: We’re not trying to control you.
MATT: Why is she even here?
PR REP: I need to be here, Matt. You’re making that painfully obvious.
MATT: It’s a waste of her time and your money. No offense. I mean, think about it, is she
really going to stop you from saying what you want to say or me from asking what I want to ask?
PR REP: It’s protocol.
MATT: It’s protocol.
BILL: He’s right. You don’t need to be here.
PR REP: But, Bill, I—
BILL: Thanks.
PR REP: Thanks.
MATT: Thanks.
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(The PR Rep goes.)
BILL: Now that I’m aware of the problem it’ll be fixed.
MATT: Okay. Thanks.
BILL: So you still want to do this interview or am I going to have to pay you a million bucks
first?
MATT: Let’s do the interview. I’ll bill you later.
(Crossfade back to the resume class.)
REPORTER 4: So did the Gates Foundation PR folks back off?
MATT: Hell no.
INSTRUCTOR: I guess Gates couldn’t push through the web his PR team had created.
MATT: Yeah, maybe, but you get what you pay for. And he pays a lot of money for them to
protect him from looking bad.
REPORTER 3: The fish rots from the head?
MATT: Your words, not mine. The point is, with the PI tits up, that’s one less entity whose
questions the Gates Foundation feels obliged to answer.
[Break to insert other story.]
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