NEW YORK CITY
“SO WHERE DO WE STAND ON THIS?” ASKED ROGER NEWELL.
Two other men and three women sat around the conference table in the headquarters offices of Allied News. Dress was strictly informal: sweaters, chinos and Levis, not a tie or jacket in sight.
Newell prided himself on keeping the office relaxed. Gathering and broadcasting the news was a high-pressure profession; no sense adding to the strain with silly dress code requirements.
“They’re okay,” said the lean, languid young man sitting on his left. “No physical danger. Just the VR equipment crapped out on them.”
Newell suppressed a smirk.
One of the women—roundly overweight and pasty-faced—said in a crisp, biting tone, “This morning’s poll results show the Mars expedition ranks behind the animal rights conference and the fruit picker’s strike in Florida.”
“It’s the old story,” said the woman beside her, who was considerably younger. She radiated ambition, from her modish blonde buzz cut to her stiletto heels. “Nobody gives a rat’s fart about what they’re doing on Mars unless they get into some trouble.”
“And a breakdown of their VR equipment isn’t trouble?”
“Not enough, anyway.”
“The tabloids don’t think so,” said the man on Newell’s right. “Did you see ’em last night? Three straight shows about how Martians living underground are using psychic powers to destroy the expedition’s equipment.”
The pasty-faced woman laughed. “Last week the tabloids were saying that the Martians would show themselves to our people and give them the cure for cancer.”
They all snickered, even Newell.
But then he said, “So their equipment breakdown doesn’t mesmerize our viewers, eh?”
“Naw. People want a real disaster.”
“Lives at stake.”
“Burning and bleeding.”
“All right,” Newell said, raising his hands. Their banter shut off immediately.
He smiled at them. “So they can’t beam their virtual reality broadcasts to their subscribers, is that it?”
“Not until they patch up the equipment.”
“So their subscribers have to tune in to us to get their news about Mars, right?”
“Or the competition.”
“So what do we do? We can’t take ten-fifteen seconds every night to tell our audience that nothing’s happened on Mars.”
“We could do a quickie science report,” said the overweight woman.
Everyone groaned. Science reports lost viewers, they all believed that firmly. Science was dull. Doing science reports was like handing the audience to your competition.
“Do we just ignore Mars altogether?”
The oldest woman at the table—she must have been approaching forty, at least—tapped a forefinger against her chin. “I remember …”
“What?” asked Newell.
“Something they showed us in school … when I was—no! It was in the media history class I took a couple of years ago.”
“What?” Newell repeated, with some exasperation.
“Cronkite did it! Yeah, that’s right.”
“What?” the others chorused.
“There was some kind of crisis. Hostages or something. Dragged on for more than a year. At the end of every broadcast, Cronkite would say, ‘This is the fifty-fourth day’ of whatever it was.”
“Like a countdown?”
“More like a reminder. A calendar, sort of.”
Newell cocked his head to one side, a sign that he was thinking. The others stayed silent.
“I like it,” he said at last. “At the end of the evening news we have the anchor say, ‘This is the fifty-fourth day that our explorers are on Mars.’”
“Whatever the right number is.”
“Of course.”
“The phrasing needs work, I think.”
“That’s what we’ve got writers for,” said Newell, somewhat crossly.
“This way, we remind the audience that those people are still on Mars.”
“But we don’t waste air time doing a science story.”
“Unless something happens to them.”
“Oh, if they get into trouble we’ll hop on it with both feet,” Newell promised. “Nothing like real danger to boost the ratings.”