Broadchurch: The Letter: A Series Two Original Short Story by Erin Kelly, Chris Chibnall
Authors: Erin Kelly, Chris Chibnall
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MAGGIE RADCLIFFE
Rory Costello
Brand Operations Director
Breaking News Group Ltd
London Wall
London EC1
Dear Sir
It is with great regret that I must tender my resignation after fifteen years as Editor of the Broadchurch Echo.
I accept that the industry is changing. However, the nature of your swingeing cuts – in particular, centralising the finances and taking everyday decisions from my hands – means that I am no longer able to do the job I am good at in a town I love. Our new office is a fraction of the size of our old newsroom and barely fit for purpose, with facilities more appropriate to a small family home than business premises. From a staff of twenty I am now down to a workforce of three: myself, a junior reporter and an under-qualified office manager on whom we must rely for everything from manning the phones to advertising revenue.
If you have read the newspaper you will know that we have for some time been covering the murder of schoolboy Daniel Latimer and the subsequent arrest and forthcoming trial of local man Joe Miller. This is by far the biggest story Broadchurch has ever seen and the Echo should own it. But your persistent refusal to let me take charge of my own newspaper’s budget has been deeply counter-productive. I begged you not to lay off our staff photographer, and I have been proved right. I am currently in the ignominious position of having to bid for agency shots of events happening on our own doorstep. We do not, as you so forcibly reminded me in your last email, have the budget for this. I cannot stay in a position where I am constantly undermined, then berated for the consequences.
I write this letter with a heavy heart. I have been employed by Breaking News for over thirty years in various capacities and I regret that my longstanding relationship with the company must end this way.
I may be only local news and a small cog in your empire, but all news is local to begin with and you would do well to remember that.
Sincerely
Maggie Radcliffe
It is the day before Joe Miller’s trial. God knows there’s plenty of real work to do, but Maggie has been at her desk since eight, writing and rewriting her resignation letter.
Thirty years, she’s been a reporter. Three decades of covering everything from crime at the Old Bailey to cats up trees for the local papers, and she’s been reduced to this: a shoebox of an office, a skeleton staff, writing angry letters to a management consultant in London with no respect for Maggie’s experience or her skills. It seems that almost overnight a new way of operating has locked her out of her beloved profession. Thirty years. She feels her age for the first time in her career and she resents it. She can see which way the wind is blowing: better to get out now and preserve what’s left of her professional pride.
The door swings open and for a second Maggie smells the sea, the only good thing about the new harbourside office. It’s Lucy Stevens, red hair styled by the breeze. ‘Morning, Mags!’
‘It’s Maggie ,’ she replies through clenched teeth. Lucy edges through stacked archive boxes and teetering piles of paper that she should have filed by now. She sinks into her chair, chewing gum that doesn’t quite mask the traces of last night’s vodka. Maggie re-reads the paragraph about staff. Under-qualified is putting it lightly; liability would be the better word to describe Lucy Stevens.
Maggie acknowledges that some of the anger on the page is really directed at herself. No one forced her to give Lucy the office manager job. Maggie did it as a favour for Ellie Miller as much as anything. The Stevens’ money worries are chronic. The last thing Ellie needs while her husband’s on trial and her son’s not talking to her is for Lucy to come to her cap in hand, a loan shark on her tail. Maggie must be going soft; she’s seen it happen before, hardened hacks losing it in their dotage. Another reason for her to get out now, before she gets a
Rory Costello
Brand Operations Director
Breaking News Group Ltd
London Wall
London EC1
Dear Sir
It is with great regret that I must tender my resignation after fifteen years as Editor of the Broadchurch Echo.
I accept that the industry is changing. However, the nature of your swingeing cuts – in particular, centralising the finances and taking everyday decisions from my hands – means that I am no longer able to do the job I am good at in a town I love. Our new office is a fraction of the size of our old newsroom and barely fit for purpose, with facilities more appropriate to a small family home than business premises. From a staff of twenty I am now down to a workforce of three: myself, a junior reporter and an under-qualified office manager on whom we must rely for everything from manning the phones to advertising revenue.
If you have read the newspaper you will know that we have for some time been covering the murder of schoolboy Daniel Latimer and the subsequent arrest and forthcoming trial of local man Joe Miller. This is by far the biggest story Broadchurch has ever seen and the Echo should own it. But your persistent refusal to let me take charge of my own newspaper’s budget has been deeply counter-productive. I begged you not to lay off our staff photographer, and I have been proved right. I am currently in the ignominious position of having to bid for agency shots of events happening on our own doorstep. We do not, as you so forcibly reminded me in your last email, have the budget for this. I cannot stay in a position where I am constantly undermined, then berated for the consequences.
I write this letter with a heavy heart. I have been employed by Breaking News for over thirty years in various capacities and I regret that my longstanding relationship with the company must end this way.
I may be only local news and a small cog in your empire, but all news is local to begin with and you would do well to remember that.
Sincerely
Maggie Radcliffe
It is the day before Joe Miller’s trial. God knows there’s plenty of real work to do, but Maggie has been at her desk since eight, writing and rewriting her resignation letter.
Thirty years, she’s been a reporter. Three decades of covering everything from crime at the Old Bailey to cats up trees for the local papers, and she’s been reduced to this: a shoebox of an office, a skeleton staff, writing angry letters to a management consultant in London with no respect for Maggie’s experience or her skills. It seems that almost overnight a new way of operating has locked her out of her beloved profession. Thirty years. She feels her age for the first time in her career and she resents it. She can see which way the wind is blowing: better to get out now and preserve what’s left of her professional pride.
The door swings open and for a second Maggie smells the sea, the only good thing about the new harbourside office. It’s Lucy Stevens, red hair styled by the breeze. ‘Morning, Mags!’
‘It’s Maggie ,’ she replies through clenched teeth. Lucy edges through stacked archive boxes and teetering piles of paper that she should have filed by now. She sinks into her chair, chewing gum that doesn’t quite mask the traces of last night’s vodka. Maggie re-reads the paragraph about staff. Under-qualified is putting it lightly; liability would be the better word to describe Lucy Stevens.
Maggie acknowledges that some of the anger on the page is really directed at herself. No one forced her to give Lucy the office manager job. Maggie did it as a favour for Ellie Miller as much as anything. The Stevens’ money worries are chronic. The last thing Ellie needs while her husband’s on trial and her son’s not talking to her is for Lucy to come to her cap in hand, a loan shark on her tail. Maggie must be going soft; she’s seen it happen before, hardened hacks losing it in their dotage. Another reason for her to get out now, before she gets a
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