Carl Hiaasen – Basket Case

He wore a peerless wool suit but otherwise he looked terrible, drawn and sleepless, with scrotal bags under his anxious green eyes. Even his hair refused to shine.

“Good afternoon, Jack,” he said tautly.

“You never told me how you liked the old man’s obit.”

“Didn’t I? I thought it was fine.”

“I’ll pass along your compliments to the writer.”

Maggad scowled. “But I thought you wrote it.”

“At my right hand was a college intern named Evan Richards. Bright kid, too. He’s not coming back to the Union-Register because he noticed that you’ve run it into the shitter.”

I reminded young Race that it had been several months since we’d last spoken, and that significant events had occurred in the interim. Maggad-Feist lost a costly antitrust suit in upstate Washington, and had been forced to sell two profitable radio stations. The price of company stock spiraled from 40 1/4 to 22 1/4, a five-year low. Two competing media conglomerates—one German, one Canadian—had initiated hostile attempts to take over the chain.

And MacArthur Polk, one of the largest individual shareholders, had passed away.

“Tell me something I don’t already know,” Maggad grumbled.

“How about this, hoss? As of tomorrow, you’ll no longer be paying my salary.”

“Whoopee-do. Where’s the champagne.” Young Race was in a tough spot, so I let him blow off steam. “Newspapers are in the business of making money, Tagger, so don’t be so naive and self-righteous. Journalism can’t exist without making a profit.”

“Well, you damn sure can’t have good journalism when you’re milking the cow for twenty-five percent. We might as well be working for the Gambinos,” I said. “By the way, how are the Porsches enjoying that dreamy Southern California climate? No more slush in your tailpipes, I’ll bet!”

For a moment it appeared that Maggad was sucking his own cheeks down his throat. I’d touched a raw nerve with that California jab—Forbes had recently done a snarky article about the obscene cost of relocating Maggad-Feist’s headquarters to sunny San Diego. Shareholders were seething.

Stonily he said to me, “We publish twenty-seven very good papers. They win awards.”

“In spite of you, yes, they do.”

The Race Maggads of the industry have a standard gospel to rationalize their pillaging. It goes like this: American newspapers are steadily losing both readers and advertisers to cable TV and the Internet. This fatal slide can be reversed only with a radical recasting of our role in the community. We need to be more receptive and responsive, less cynical and confrontational. We need to be more sensitive to our institutions, especially to our advertisers. We can no longer afford to shield our news and editorial operations from the pressures and demands that steer the business side of publishing. We’re all in this together! In these difficult times we need to do more with less—less space in which to print the news, fewer reporters with which to cover it, and a much smaller budget with which to pursue it. Yet even as we do more with less, we must never forget our solemn pledge to our readers, blah, blah, blah…

It’s an appalling geyser of shit and nobody with half a brain believes a word, not when polo-playing CEOs can confidently talk of twenty-five percent annual profits. Like most publishing tycoons, Race Maggad III is oblivious to his own vulgarity. On the positive side, he has (unlike the Hearsts and Pulitzers of their day) no hidden political agenda to peddle, no private vendettas to promote on the pages of his newspapers. Maggad cares about one thing only.

“What, you want me to grovel?” he said. “You know we need to repurchase Mr. Polk’s shares, and you know why. Try to put aside your petty personal bitterness, Tagger. Think of all your friends and colleagues whose jobs would be jeopardized if one of these hostile entities gained control of our company.”

“You’re implying things would get worse in the newsroom? How’s that possible? Are you suggesting these people have less interest in decent journalism than you do?”

Maggad desperately longed to kick out my front teeth, but the task at hand required civility. Lord, I’d have loved to see his expression when Charlie Chickle broke the news that Old Man Polk had put his Maggad-Feist stock holdings in a trust. A trust to be managed by me—the same wise-ass who’d insulted Maggad in front of his investors, the same impertinent prick whose career he had conspired to destroy. “The irony is delicious, isn’t it, Race?”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *