31 #TheRingRound

Tom O’Neill @DerryDude1887

Can’t believe he’s gone. RIP @BryceTripleB

The staff at ABT News were still in a state of shock, wandering around in a trance. There was no procedure for an event like this, when your star presenter is suddenly no more. Apart from having to deal with the media maelstrom, senior executives now had a forty-five-minute hole to fill in their schedules every night.

There was also the question of what sort of tribute piece should be done for the first show in Bryce’s absence. Should it be a montage of clips from his best, most combative interviews, or should they hurriedly try to arrange on-camera pieces from his celebrity friends giving glowing tributes to the deceased presenter?

Tom O’Neill knew all too well that celebrity ring rounds were the bane of every reporter’s life. Whenever an editor or one of his minions wanted an opinion on some topic or another, they ordered their staff to phone celebrities. The problem was, editors came up with the idea so often it was always the same faces, which was mostly ageing soap actors or fading pop stars – basically anyone a journalist could get instantly on the end of a phone.

Whenever the topic was really important, editors would add the proviso, ‘And no crap celebs this time – I want A-listers.’ That meant going through agents and managers and, given the deadlines and time constraints, this was a completely futile exercise. So, forced with nothing better to run, they would end up using the same old faces yet again. Tom had always made a point of calling the Krankies for a quote whenever he was ordered to do a celeb ring round.

The Krankies were a veteran husband-and-wife showbiz act, who had been on the go for nearly half a century. Tom called so often, the pair just told him to ‘make up whatever you want us to say’, the sort of open invitation a journalist has wet dreams about. There wasn’t a topic too trivial or too big for the family entertainers to tackle: from nuclear disarmament to the death of Nelson Mandela, the Krankies always had something poignant and meaningful to say.

Tom thought he had left all that behind when he had quit London for New York. He’d been installed as Bryce Horrigan’s Head of Content. It had been a grand title, but he found himself doing almost the same job as he had in London – being at Bryce’s beck and call to try to make his boss’s cocaine-induced ideas work.

Now, in the wake of Bryce’s death, the network chief arrived on the editorial floor, instantly commanding respect. ‘I know you’re all suffering, folks. But you are professionals and we have a show to put together. I want to get a bunch of celebrities to give tributes to Bryce for tonight’s show. No Z-listers. I want A-listers.’

New country. Different medium. But same old shit as far as Tom was concerned. He sat in his late boss’s chair for the first time and swivelled around to take in the city. There was nothing like the Manhattan skyline. It was such a pity Tom never had the time to appreciate it. He was perpetually busy, doing at least fourteen-hour days. And Bryce was even more demanding as a TV host than he was as a national newspaper editor.

After replacing Connor Presley, Tom had eventually risen to become Bryce’s deputy editor. But in New York he had hit the glass ceiling. As Horrigan’s deputy, he could rise no further. There was virtually no prospect of taking the editor’s chair from him in London or unseating him in New York. In one late-night boozy session after work, Tom had been crying into his drink, bemoaning the lack of advancement opportunities, when Bryce had announced he was taking a rare week’s holiday to return to the UK. Tom assumed he would finally get to anchor the TV show in his absence. But the network chief had decided to run a bunch of Bryce re-runs instead. In a bustling bar off Second Avenue, where the real New Yorkers like to drink away from the tourists, Bryce gave it to Tom straight.

‘They just don’t want you in front of camera, I’m afraid,’ he said casually.

Tom was appalled; he had been hoping this would be his big break. ‘I’ve been waiting for this, Bryce. It’s what I came for,’ he said in his Derry accent. Tom felt he was far more suited to television than Bryce. He was better looking for a start.

‘The problem is your voice, old bean. The Americans haven’t a clue what you’re saying. To be truthful, I didn’t have a fucking clue what you were banging on about for the first year you worked for me, but your copy was always spot-on. So I’m afraid a Northern Irish brogue just ain’t going to cut it with our American friends.’

Bryce’s words had been like a dagger to Tom’s heart. It felt like his whole career was a sham. That he was destined to forever live in Bryce’s shadow.