May 1
NBC News
Rockefeller Center
New York City
4:23 P.M. EDT
The Anchor was furious, and Todd Lieberman was straining skills both diplomatic and pragmatic in a losing attempt to avoid a total systems meltdown.
“Brian, I understand,” Todd said. “But Denny was here, and we had an NBC ‘exclusive’ on the breaking news story about the crash. The AP flash that he was dead came in seconds—seconds!—after we went on air. Who else could have made the announcement?”
The producer glanced at the flat-screen, hung high over the mirrors in the make-up room, which allowed mid-transformational “talent” to watch the broadcast feed even as the cosmetics artists did their high-def-TV airbrushing magic.
On the monitor—mercifully silent, since Todd had had the foresight to mute the volume in a futile effort to avoid further salt-rubbing the wounded ego in the make-up chair—Dennis Littrell shared a split-screen with NBC’s senior Homeland Security correspondent.
And I’m not going to say it out loud, Todd’s mind added, but ol’ Denny is doing one helluva job out there, too. We both know it, and we both know that’s one of the reasons you’re going ballistic…
“Pull him, damn it,” the Anchor said, through gritted teeth. To the make-up artist—unfazed, since she had spent two decades grooming oft-outraged personages in her chair—he snapped, “Finish, for God’s sake!”
The Anchor had arrived minutes before at 30 Rock, sweating and panting and disheveled, having sprinted along sidewalks jammed with others likewise forced afoot by the traffic snarl. The eleven-block dash had, of course, not helped alleviate the desperation—nor had it moderated the anger of learning that he would not be immortalized in the video archives as having been the “he” who had broken an historic announcement on air.
“Brian, c’mon!” Todd said, trying to placate. “We pull Denny now, you know how jarring that would look. And the media critics would be all over it; you can guess what they’d say, and it wouldn’t reflect well on you either.”
The Anchor growled yet another low pejorative, and stared furiously at the elevated screen.
“Let’s just try what I’m suggesting,” Todd said. “We get you on set—in the anchor chair, of course—and we keep Denny at the desk with you. Just long enough so we can ease him off without looking too … abrupt about it. Okay?”
“We’re going to be having a talk about this,” the Anchor said. “You and me, when all this is over.” His tone indicated that the chat would be short, and the context anything but sweet.
“Five minutes, okay? We’ll cut away to tape, get you settled on the set,” Todd said, in the tone of an anxious-to-please team player.
Though his mind was already sifting and sorting through a list of writers, producers, and others who might want to work on a new show with Dennis Littrell.