Читать книгу Bylines & Deadlines - Kimberly Vinje - Страница 7

Prologue

Kristine Larkin died at the age of 25 - just when she had begun to live her dream. She was an ambitious reporter, who worked hard to gain the respect of her editors and the people she approached when she had a good lead on a story. She was young and attractive - two strikes against her in the cut-throat fight for a byline. She ached to be taken seriously and grew more and more frustrated when she wasn’t. She didn’t hide that frustration well and commonly used sarcasm in her poor and unconscious self-defense strategy.

She knew rumors swirled when she was hired fresh out of a small town university by a paper as large and reputable as the New York Chronicle. That’s why she was more tenacious, more aggressive and more arrogant than the seasoned reporters could accept from an unproven kid with a journalism degree. She was unexpected in their world.

After a year, some of the reporters started to recognize her talents, but most of them still didn’t like her. The publisher and editors loved her. She raised the bar for some of the veterans who had become reactive and complacent. Instead of seeking a big story, a few of the reporters would wait for someone to drop one into their laps. They were living off their reputation. When Kristine arrived, she began to find the big stories on her own. She networked with anyone and everyone. She flirted with security guards, and she commiserated with administrative assistants.

Her subtle manipulation of people bordered on the brazen. She finessed people using two rules: 1) a man’s vulnerabilities stemmed from ego and libido and 2) a woman’s vulnerabilities resided in ego and maternal instinct. If she could find common ground, she could work a person into revealing what she wanted to know. She almost always had an ulterior motive for engaging someone on the personal level, which she justified by convincing herself the ends justified the means.

She spent so much energy making contacts outside the office she didn’t show much interest in her co-workers. She spent her time away from work working. She would listen to police scanners, read old news stories written by journalists she admired, or she’d go to a bar where she knew people with potential stories and secrets would be drinking…and talking too much.

There was one exception to her disposable view of people - a man named Derrick. Derrick was a nurse at one of the busiest hospitals in the city. Privacy laws prevented patient information from being freely given by medical professionals, but Derrick liked to talk even if he wouldn’t see his name in print. He seemed to get some pleasure from knowing he was “an unnamed source” or maybe it was sticking it to the establishment that drove him. Most likely it was that he liked knowing things others didn’t and wasn’t good at keeping secrets for strangers. Either way, what had started as a reporter luring someone into her network of sources had turned into the closest thing she had to a friendship. Derrick didn’t give you the option to ignore him, and he was likable. So, Kristine allowed herself an occasional Sunday afternoon shopping or trying a new restaurant with him, but she always seemed to have one ear tuned to the conversation next to her. He was everything she wasn’t - a free-spirit and more interested in his personal than his professional life. He had different priorities, and Kristine found him interesting, even if she didn’t understand him.

On the rare occasion Kristine stopped chasing her next byline, she could be enjoyable. No one saw this side often enough to admit it existed, though. In fact, no one really knew too much about her - and really, she didn’t either. Becoming a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist was her goal - okay, obsession - and the rest of her life could wait. Kristine had no idea how little time she had.

This is the story of the demise of Kristine Larkin.