Silencing Sam by Julie Kramer

a dead gossip.”
    â€œWell, if there is, you’re the last person we’d let cover it. Every time you turned around, your motives would be suspicious. So stay away from the Sam Pierce case. I’ve already assigned it to Clay.”
    â€œBut being so new to the market, there’re things he’d miss. Clues that would go right over his head. I’m an insider, I’ll recognize local connections.”
    â€œBut being an outsider, he’ll have objectivity. Something we highly value in this profession.”
    Noreen was right about that, and I couldn’t argue her point. But that didn’t mean I was going to stay away from the gossip investigation. I would just stay under my boss’s radar.
    â€œWell, how about if I dig around in the headless homicide?” Given a little time, I was certain I’d come up with an irresistible lead that would show that Texas windbag just who was high in the saddle.
    â€œRiley, I know you enjoy covering crime, but I think it’s best you stay away from any homicide investigations until the ‘Piercing Eyes’ case is solved. Your involvement puts the station in a thorny situation. And frankly, I’m pleased with the job Clay’s done. He hasn’t broken every scoop, but he’s done fine.”
    I couldn’t really bicker about either conclusion withoutNoreen accusing me of professional jealousy, and honestly, I was jealous. A little competitive zeal can be both a help and a hindrance.
    Viewers expect reporters to compete head-to-head, pushing and shoving with their counterparts across town. What they don’t realize is reporters compete against colleagues in their own newsroom. For interviews. For awards. For resources. For the most time. For the best play.
    And we’re judged by ratings. Constantly.
    I’d mentored plenty of rookie reporters over the years, but the difference between them and Clay was spelled R-E-S-P-E-C-T. He didn’t respect me. He walked into Channel 3 and acted like I was all washed up just because the only thing breaking a 40 share in this market these days was Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings.
    Clashing with Noreen wouldn’t bode well. So I nodded silently, promised myself I’d show him a thing or two about breaking news, and changed the subject.
    â€œWant me to work something up on the wind farm story?” I asked. “There’s good stuff that never made air because of the timing of … the murder.”
    I didn’t say Sam’s name out loud, lest she suspect I was scheming.
    She nixed the wind idea as anything special. “Old news, now.”
    â€œI’ve got some interesting stuff about bomb-sniffing dogs.”
    She pursed her lips, then, dog lover that she was, told me to package something to hold for the Saturday newscast as long as we’d already shot video. Saturday is about as low a priority as a news story can land. So I almost wished I hadn’t brought it up.
    Noreen seemed to sense my disappointment and tried to rationalize her decision. “Riley, it’s not like there’s any dead bodies. Viewers care about danger and money.”
    So because the economy was tanking, she ordered me to doa quick-turn crime story about the increase in drive-off crooks at gas stations and dine-and-dash thieves at restaurants.
    Sam Pierce had moved from Chicago to Minneapolis four years earlier for a reporter position on the newspaper’s suburban beat. A couple months later, when the paper posted a gossip columnist job none of the rest of the staff would touch because it wasn’t Real Journalism, he raised his hand. To the surprise of everyone but the top editor, Minnesotans quietly ate up the dish.
    â€œPiercing Eyes” was entertainment, not news, though it ran in the news section, creating some periodic confusion and debate.
    Sam’s newsroom colleagues envied the buzz he began to generate and the job security he seemed to possess