Chapter 3

At work, Dan Fagan took a break from what he was doing and thought about some fairly recent events that happened. His thoughts went to the time the employment contracts for the two main newsreaders of the evening and late evening news shows were coming up for renewal. Dan had a meeting with Burt Radisson to discuss what changes he planned on making.

“While our present news team is rated number one, it isn’t number one by much. It’s Paul Conners’s commentaries why we have this rating and for us to go higher it is going to require some changes to be made. It’s obvious that our ratings aren’t going to further improve with our present newsreaders. Doing a “Happy Talk” type of news broadcast is not the way to go here either. I was thinking of doing something different in that I would like to take advantage of Paul Conners’s popularity and hire some good-looking women.”

“What do you have in mind,” said Burt.

“Let’s see if we can make Paul a newsreader, and hire a younger, good-looking female newsreader and also a good-looking female weatherperson now that our present weatherman is retiring. I think we keep Larry Simon on sports as he is handsome enough and does a creditable job. Any idea on where we can find these two women we need.”

“When I was back for a college reunion in Peoria, Illinois, there was a good-looking weekend news reader there by the name of Joyce Jamison who impressed me. I made a tape of her doing a news broadcast that I can show you. Mona Wright on Channel Twenty-Two is their weekend weather lady and rumors are she is looking to move on. She has a gang-buster body that she shows in the tight clothes she wears. If you want women to attract men, these ladies will do it,” said Burt.

“Let me see the video of Joyce and I will watch Mona this weekend. If I agree with you, we should make arrangements to interview the two of them.”

It turned out that Dan did agree with Burt and after interviews were done, these two women were hired.

The part of the job most managers don’t like to do is to tell an employee they are no longer needed and they are being laid off. This was what Dan had to do with Walt Epson and Irene Dercel, who were the present newsreaders for the weekday evening news broadcasts. After making sure his nanny-type recorder was turned on, he asked them separately to come into his office and he broke the news to them that their contracts weren’t being renewed.

Walt took the news surprisingly well saying he could afford it and was thinking about retiring and enjoying life more. Dan’s offer of the group medical insurance continuing till Walt was eligible for Medicare sealed the deal.

Irene, however, was a different story. She said she was too young to retire even though she was fifty-six years old. Instead of being laid off, she said she was expecting a big raise because of the news broadcasts’ number-one rating. She told Dan he was going to be sorry for doing this as she was going to do things that he would regret. Dan told her that if she did make waves, his offer of the group medical continuing would stop when it legally could.

Paul Conners came into Dan’s office a short time later after Irene stormed out wondering why he was asked to come here for a meeting.

The meeting started with Dan saying,” We know your commentaries have contributed to our now being the number one news program at six and ten. We want to use your talents to increase our lead. To do that, we are going to do a re-staffing of our present news team. We would like to make you a combination newsreader and commentator. By that I mean let’s say you read a story about a proposal to increase the gas tax, whether it is by the State or nationally to fix the roads and bridges. After reading the story you might say something like, “Before we increase this tax can we get an assurance that the money collected by the present tax all went to repair the roads and bridges, or did some of it go into the general fund?”

“Or maybe it might be that you say like, “Why is it that politicians who have been in Congress for a while seem to become multi-millionaires? What investing knowledge do they have that the average investor doesn’t have that enables them to pick certain stocks? Are they or are their spouses trading on what could be said is insider information and what should be done about them doing that?

“We think you in doing the news like that will increase the viewership with people watching wanting to know what is on your mind and wanting to hear you say it. Granted, not all the viewers will agree with you but that could also increase the viewership. We think you are quick enough to make it look like your comments aren’t scripted in advance which they won’t be.”

“Our present news broadcasters are going to announce they are retiring, hopefully with the usual statement of them wanting to spend more time with the family. In addition to you, the main news team will consist of your co-host Joyce Jamison who is coming from Peoria, IL, and the weather lady will be Mona Wright from Channel Twenty-Two. Larry Simon the star football player who suffered that career-ending injury will continue to do the sports. These two women are attractive and we think they will draw male viewers.”

“You do know if you want me to do this,” said Paul. “I need to be able to comment on both political parties. Right now there is somewhat of a bias toward one political party existing in your newscasts that needs to be eliminated. There is also news occurring that isn’t being reported because it is embarrassing to one political party, yet viewers can find that news on the net.”

“There will be no barriers as to what you want to report and say,” said Burt.

“As to you continuing to write your newspaper column that is something for you to work out with the paper,” said Dan.

After Paul had left Dan’s office, Dan had a conversation with Larry Simon the sports newsreader. He explained to Larry the new direction the news team was heading. He told Larry he was expected to be a valued member of this news team. Dan could only hope he had made the right move in doing this realignment. Only time would tell if what he did was the right thing to do.

It was the next day that Dan received a phone call from Bruce Stanton, an attorney who said he was representing Irene Dercel. Bruce said he was going to file a lawsuit for the sexual harassment Dan had done and was going to be asking for ten million dollars in damages. He surprised Dan when he said that Irene had told him Dan fired her on the spot because she would not give him oral sex. This lawsuit he said was going to get national exposure.