Extra! Extra! Why I'm Tuning in for Alaska Daily

About twenty years ago, a new TV show aired with a big-name star (whose name, ironically, I can't recall) about a newspaper reporter. I was a former newspaper reporter—I'd loved being a reporter (mostly)—and had been eager to see the show. But I ended up watching only a couple of episodes because the show was ridiculously over-the-top. I remember complaining about it to a friend (another former reporter). Why, I said, can't there ever be TV shows about journalists that are realistic? And he said, "You want to watch a TV show about taking notes in meetings or interviewing people on the phone?" He had a point (and he hadn't even mentioned the third prong in the triumvirate of fascinating things reporters do: type up their articles). While the articles reporters write may be interesting, the news-gathering process? Not so much.

Yet the new show Alaska Daily is proving my old friend and me wrong. Airing at 10 p.m. ET Thursdays on ABC, and available for streaming on Hulu, Alaska Daily is my favorite new show of the season. I've read reviews complaining about the show, but I'm going to focus on what I like about it: it puts a spotlight on the importance of local journalism at a time when so many newspapers are going under, leaving many communities without a watchdog of their powers that be.

The show has what I'm assuming will be a season-long arc, in which series star Hilary Swank, playing a big-deal NY reporter who's pushed out of her job, moves to Anchorage, Alaska, to work at the city newspaper (the fictional Daily Alaskan) to investigate the crisis of missing Indigenous women. Swank's character is teamed up with an Indigenous reporter, played by Grace Dove, and in each episode they make some (sometimes significant) progress. This is an important story line based, sadly, on real life. 

Each episode also has a stand-alone story line. These have included:

• A state official who misappropriated public funds
• A radicalized local man who is stockpiling bomb-making materials. (The story stemmed from a reporter interviewing the winner of the largest cabbage at the state fair, and you can't get more local journalism than that.)
• A beloved Anchorage restaurant owner selling out to a chain

Do I have issues with the show? Sure. For instance, the episode about the restaurant ended with the reporter writing a first-person article about the restaurant and why it was important to her and her family and why the owner had sold it. It was heart-stirring, but it blurred the line between news articles and opinion pieces—something that's already too blurry in too many people's minds. Nonetheless, I liked the episode. I've liked all the episodes, in fact, because they show reporters doing what reporters actually do: interviewing people, gathering facts, and making a difference in their community. (Wanting to make a difference, that's why everyone I knew who was a reporter went into the industry; it certainly wasn't for the money or for glamour.)

I like the reporters at the Daily Alaskan, even Swank's bristly character, who I assume will be toned down as the season progresses as she learns from her experiences and grows. I like the paper's newsroom, set in a strip mall because of financial issues (which is why they have a tiny staff, like so many real newspapers today that are struggling to survive). I like the paper's commitment to doing journalism right. 

So often these days, people see reporters as the bad guys. Alaska Daily puts its reporters in a positive light, and that's why I'm tuning in each week. I hope you'll check it out too.

***

While I have your attention, I'll be appearing this Saturday, Nov. 12th, at a Mystery Author Extravaganza at the Miller Library in Ellicott City, Maryland, along with fourteen other authors from the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime. We'll be talking about our new books and stories published this year. Books will be available for sale. Click on either link in the next paragraph to get the full list of participating authors.

The event is free and open to the public (no matter where you live). It starts at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. You also can watch over Zoom if you can't attend in person. To register to attend, click here for in-person or here for Zoom. (Walk-ins to the in-person event are welcome if you decide at the last minute to attend.) The library's address: 9421 Frederick Road, Ellicott City, MD 21042.

How to be a Success: Go Cookie-Cutter Blonde and Stay There

WARNING:  Not a comedy post.

Back in my forties, I made a critical career error.  I didn't dye my hair blonde.

Dark auburn from birth, I kind of liked my unique hair colour which went well with the snake green eyes I also came with.  (My first husband was a big fan of the combo, and used to say, every time a British Racing Green Jaguar went by, "there go your eyes".)

Thing is, back then, I didn't know that every successful woman was supposed to be blonde.  Not brunette, not auburn, and certainly not grey.

Yes, I'm talking about the current uproar in Canada, about Lisa LaFlamme being let go from the CTV news anchor position. She was 58 and had let her hair go grey due to the pandemic.

What you may not know is that Lisa LaFlamme is gorgeous.  She is glamorous beyond anything I could achieve.  She is a respected journalist with 30 years experience, much of it in the field, overseas.  She has been given the Order of Canada for her work.

She is also the 'brand,' meaning she was the anchor for the top rated evening news show in Canada.  It is the most viewed IN CANADA.

And CTV have let her go.

Who torpedoes their most successful brand? 

No amount of back-peddling can whitewash this.  We all know why.  The big honcho in charge was even quoted in a meeting as having said, "Who allowed Lisa LaFlamme to go grey?"  Every major media outlet and blog in the country is screaming foul on this.  The Beaverton, a wonderful satirical magazine, said this:  "...clearly she should have been fired the day she turned 50...We cannot apologize enough for subjecting our viewers to the sight of a woman who is almost 60 years old."'

Some time ago, my former agent (a nice guy who died suddenly) said to me, "Keep dyeing your hair." Showing your age, it seemed, would be career-limiting.

Why this post?  Lisa LaFlamme and I are of an age. She chose to eschew the cookie cutter blonde look (I'm sure the networks buy this dye by the barrel) and embrace her grey, confident in the fact that her professionalism was the key to holding her anchor position.

So I ask it again, as I did in my 40s, and my 20s, will we ever have a world where the way a woman looks does not override what she accomplishes?

I could write more, but I'm due back out on the picket lines carrying my sign, "I can't believe I'm still protesting this shit."

Sunnier postscript:

I've just had a revelation.  My last dog Sunny was a huge Frankenpoodle, a shaggy golden delight of clumsy friendliness.  Stranger adored him.  In contrast, our previous adorable shaggy dog, who was dark brown in colour, seemed to make people wary at first.  I am wondering if the same might be true of humans.  Do blonde-haired women (even if bottle blonde) naturally seem friendlier and less threatening than dark or grey-haired ones? Is that why Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, as the saying goes?  Comments welcome!

When News Gathering and Entertainment Values Collide

It seems appropriate on this Election Day to end all Election Days to write about a short story I have in the current (November/December) issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine: "Eat, Drink, and Be Murdered." It's a whodunit. Not what you'd call a political story at all. But it involves a newspaper and its role in our democracy, and, sadly, these days that has become a political topic.

The story is about the owner of a small city newspaper and the lengths she'll go to try to save the paper because she believes in the important role journalists play in our society as a check on government--national and local. I grew up believing in that role. While reporters sometimes make mistakes, because that's what humans do, I believe most of them are good people who strive for accuracy and fairness, sometimes risking their lives to share the news. It breaks my heart that so many people these days think otherwise, that they don't believe what reputable news organizations report and repudiate journalists as the enemy. They are anything but. Journalists play a vital role in our democracy.

This negative mindset toward journalism is not the only reason many newspapers are struggling these days and so many others have closed. The advent of the internet has, as we all know, led many people to seek their news online, often without wanting to pay for that privilege. But news gathering isn't free. Even if all newspapers went completely digital so that the cost of paper and printing could be saved, there still would be reporters to pay, as well as editors, graphic artists, photographers, the people who work in advertising and composition and circulation and probably other departments I'm not thinking of right now. 

I appreciate the newspapers that offer online editions and allow people to check out the occasional article for free. But I also understand why newspapers have firewalls and only allow you to view a limited number of stories per month without paying. Democracy has its price, and one way to help keep democracy going is to support newspapers, which shed sunlight on government and remind politicians that they work for us, not the other way around. You support newspapers by paying for your news. And you support democracy and the First Amendment by treating journalists with respect.

Now I'll get off my soapbox and tie this back in to my story. In "Eat, Drink, and Be Murdered," Meghan, the owner of that newspaper in a small Virginia city, is facing the same financial crunch that so many papers are these days. She's come up with what she hopes will be a great solution: running snarky restaurant reviews. She thinks they're all in good fun, that there's no such thing as bad publicity--for the newspaper or the restaurants. The reviews will encourage readership and advertisers, she predicts, who'll be attracted by the increase in circulation. And she's right. There is an increase in circulation after the new reviews start to run, and advertising grows too. But there are also some things Meghan didn't expect: angry restaurant owners, a bomb threat, and ... of course, murder. It's a difficult lesson for Meghan to learn, that easy solutions can have steep, unexpected costs, especially when news gathering and entertainment values collide.

This issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine can be purchased from the usual sources, including bookstores and newsstands. If you subscribe to the print version, they'll mail a copy to your home every other month. You also can read the magazine digitally. Individual copies and subscriptions can be purchased for your Kindle and other types of e-readers. Magazines need support these days, just like newspapers. So if you have some dollars to spare and would like to bring some regular entertainment into your world, I encourage you to consider a subscription to AHMM and/or its sister publication, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, for yourself, a friend, and/or family member this holiday season.

If you've read "Eat, Drink, and Be Murdered," I hope you loved it. If you haven't, I hope you get the magazine and read it right away. But not before you vote. If you haven't voted yet, please do that first. Then tomorrow, go buy your local newspaper, read the election results that have come in so far, and maybe even take out a subscription to the paper. Newspapers need your support to stay afloat. Our democracy needs their spotlight to stay afloat too.

The Journalist Detective

Maybe I should have known something was waiting for me when I was inspired to wear a button-down shirt and suspenders into my office. I was having writer’s block on my novel and a bad feeling when I took a pass over to the state police website in search of a story. Kassirer’s car had been found abandoned in the parking lot next to the Troop-C police barracks in the West End of Oneonta, five days after he was last seen by his family as he left his father’s funeral in Irondequoit, three days after he’d been reported missing by his employer, a drug rehab center in Brattleboro, Vermont, four days after he’d texted them to let them know he would be in the next day.

A bad feeling, sure, but I had to know where it was going to lead. I went into full detective mode. I called the Irondquoit police, who told me that he had last been seen checking out of a Binghamton hotel on the morning of Oct. 23, and that the last cell phone ping came from Oneonta, not far from where his car was located, at just before 4:30 a.m.

Meaning he checked out of his hotel at 3:30 a.m. The mystery deepened.

*

Out of curiosity, I did a Google Maps search of the area where the cell phone ping had been picked up. I saw a small path that lead into the ravine, near where his car was found. My heart sank. That’s where they’ll find him, I thought. I tried to ignore the feeling. Friends and family pleaded on Facebook for him to come home. That night, Ian and I drove out to Binghamton to buy Halloween supplies. I wondered if he’d gone into the nearby river or wandered into the woods. He wouldn’t be the first one. I lamented his disappearance and hoped he was okay.

*

The next day, a loose-lipped policeman in Massachusetts told me that a friend had picked up a ping from his cell phone in Rochester later that evening, meaning he got nearly 200 miles away from where his car was found, back towards where he had been. The police had searched his apartment and all they found in his room was a pile of blankets where a bed should be. His roommate was out of town, but someone was feeding the cat.

We went to press that night with no sign of him. I went to bed that night hoping that he would turn up in a hospital or rehab center, a man who just needed to get away from it all for a few days. But I’ve been at this business long enough to know that it’s so rarely the case.

*

My boss jokes, darkly, about my uncanny ability to read between the lines of press releases, an understanding of crime and human behavior honed from an adulthood of reading and writing mysteries.  On Wednesday, as I was getting ready for the Halloween parade, I got a call from Aga that his body had been located in “heavy brush” down the hill behind where he had parked.

Just as I had suspected.

But how did he get there? And why? I’ve written here before that being a journalist has all the questions of a private detective, with none of the release that come with the solving of a case. I can make the calls, but in the end, I have to just wait for the phone to ring and write down what is said on the other end of the line.

The autopsy proved inconclusive, but that the death was not being ruled “suspicious.” That means they don’t think he was murdered and there were no indications of suicide. Toxicology reports and additional testing take time.

Maybe I’ll have an answer for you next month.

Or maybe another case.

First Words

by Robert Lopresti

If you haven't read B.K. Stevens' most recent blog I recommend you do so now.  This is partly because it is very interesting and also because it inspired today's wisdom-dump.  I am referring specifically to the unfortunate remark the older policeman makes to the returning homeowner.

It reminded me of this scene from the classic police sitcom Barney Miller.  You want the bit that begins around 2:20.




I think it was after seeing that show that my wife and I formulated what I think of as the First Words Rule.  It states when you have to tell a friend or loved one about a bad situation that has just occurred (a car accident, a house fire, the atomic defibulator crushing the emoluments boot) the first words out of your mouth should be: Everybody's okay.  Assuming that is true, of course

Now, how does that relate to writing?  (This is a blog about writing and reading and crime, remember?)

Glad you asked.  We are looking at the difference between telling a story and telling the news.  It is natural for a storyteller to want to build up suspense, or to tell things in chronological order.  But the journalist knows that it is bad form to "bury the lede."  If you are reporting on a city council meeting and one of the members accidentally drops a bloody axe out of her purse, that's probably where you begin your piece, even if it didn't happen until New Business, way at the end of the evening.

Of course, years later when you are telling your grandchildren about your career you might want to build slowly up to the axe-drop.  But that's story-telling, not journalism.

These days fiction writers usually begin in the middle of the story, not with the journalistic lede, but as far in as they think they can go without baffling the reader.  To pick one favorite at random, here is how Earl Emerson opened Fat Tuesday:

I was trapped in a house with a lawyer, a bare-breasted woman, and a dead man.  The rattlesnake in the paper sack only complicated matters.

Not the beginning of events, but not the climax either.

You can start your story or novel wherever you see fit.  But when you're telling somebody the news, start with the most important part.