The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis

possibilities. She clung to the idea that she could change his mind with the right sentence, the right phrase.
    â€œPitch meeting in my office in ten minutes,” Tyler announced as he whizzed past the editors’ desks.
    After he slammed the door shut to his office, Rose moaned out loud. “Anyone have anything juicy?” she asked no one in particular.
    â€œGod, no.” Jenna, who sat in the cubicle next to her, rubbed her eyes. “I bet you do, though. You’re the queen of pitch meetings. I just wish some of your glitter would rub off on me.”
    In fact, Tyler shot down as many of Rose’s ideas as anyone else’s. But by now she knew there was no point in correcting Jenna.
    The rest of the office, all ten of them, were bright young things. She’d figured, when she’d arrived three months ago, that she’d be treated like anyone else, but of course her notoriety had preceded her. The otherreporters often turned to her for advice, and three asked her to be their mentor her very first day. Which was ridiculous since all of them were more capable than she was. Maybe not in writing skills, but they were faster and far more adaptable in an environment that valued speed and flexibility.
    When Rose worked in television, there’d been a sense of camaraderie, as the producers and editors worked through the night on a story and chugged coffee outside the editing suites. WordMerge exuded an entirely different energy. The two girls who sat on either side of her wore earphones most of the day, nodding in time to the beat, like sunflowers bobbing in the wind.
    Tyler emerged once again. “Turns out I have a call with the Coast in ten minutes. My office, let’s go.”
    Being pushed around by a grizzled news producer was one thing, but having a baby-faced neophyte do it was harder to take. She joined the others and trooped into his small office. He preferred having meetings here, versus the large conference room down the hall that they shared with an app design company. The employees squeezed into corners, perched on the windowsill, and several leaned against the walls. Rose snagged one of the few chairs.
    â€œAs you know, we’re here to save journalism, one story at a time.”
    She hated when he started out with this speech. It was so forced and saccharine. Better to save the rah-rah for potential investors.
    â€œI want to hear the best you’ve got. But keep in mind: Right now, we need stories that will go viral, stories that fly, even if they don’t have the same substance we’d want in other circumstances.”
    â€œWait, I’m confused.” Rose should keep her mouth shut. But she couldn’t help herself. “You’ve always said you wanted quality reporting most of all. If you want viral, we might as well do cat videos, right?”
    Tyler was happy to confess that he’d earned a master’s in journalism from Stanford on a whim, as a way to kill time until his trust fund matured. But in his preferred version of the story, he was a changed person by the time he graduated, inspired to save a dying profession from itself.WordMerge, he promised, was the answer, offering old-school reporting in a form that would appeal to modern readers. The guy was a complete prick and endlessly self-impressed, but his pitch was a winner—he had wooed Rose and many others with passion and tenacity. And yet the boy wonder was on edge these days, worried. How much of his investment had he blown through already?
    No one spoke for a few tense beats.
    â€œNo, Rose. No cat videos. I’m talking about a piece about a soldier with PTSD who overcomes it with the help of his gluten-free diet. Or something about the Peruvian tea everyone’s drinking in order to find a higher plane of consciousness. It’s becoming clear that we need to marry news and entertainment to get ourselves off the ground.”
    The other staffers murmured their