Free Turn of the Century by Kurt Andersen Page B

be fun elements. A little
Mary Tyler Moore
, right?
Murphy Brown
when it had an eighteen-point-six rating.
Larry Sanders
with heart and a high-Q star. We want it zoomy.”
    Emily glances at Featherstone and George nods too, just long enough, just, to indicate acknowledgment.
    “Explain to me exactly why we need
two
half hours every week before we get to the actual news program on Friday,” Mose says to Emily and George. “Timothy gave me the amortization argument. But
creatively
, what?”
    It is unclear to George if Mose’s emphasis on the word
creatively
implies curiosity or skepticism.
    “The basic idea,” George says, “is we can roll with events, evolve the story lines during the week. As news unfolds, we slip in references on the Thursday show, adjust the tenor, fix it as we go.”
    “Maintain the
arc
, Harold,” Featherstone says.
    “If the week starts off early as fun and games,” George continues, “a story like Clinton in Sausalito with his English actresses, but then, you know, a bunch of people are massacred in Mexico on Wednesday afternoon, we can adjust the trajectory for that before the Friday program. And the second episode midweek reminds the audience that we’ve got a real, functioning news operation here. It’s also,” he says, glancing over at Emily, “the three-act principle. We need a middle episode to make the transition from the docudrama of the Tuesday show—”
    “Docu
dramedy
,” Featherstone says.
    “—to the straight news hour on Friday. We can’t just go slam-bang from
Murphy Brown
to
60 Minutes
. Thursday’s the hinge.”
    “Thursday, nine-thirty,” Emily says, referring to the time slot Featherstone has broached. “Yes?”
    “Whoa there, little lady,” Featherstone says now in an Elvis Presley voice.
    “But you’re confident,” Mose says, “that you’ll find actors who can cry and argue and laugh and kiss on Tuesday and Thursday and then deliver the actual news on Friday? Credibly? They need to seem genuinely … knowledgeable.”
    “Compared with the people who do news now?” Emily says. “Yes. Compared with Connie Chung. Compared with blondes on MSNBC.”
    “Brian Williams is actually a very bright guy,” Featherstone says.
    “The turnaround time won’t be murder?” Mose asks. “To stay topical?”
    “Writing off the news will be the big challenge,” George says, “no question. But half of the Tuesday-Thursday shows will be non-timely evergreen stuff, relationship stories. Maybe more than half. And a lot of Tuesday-Thursday will be real, our process stuff—footage of camera setups, footage of staff meetings. Which will be about editing, not writing.”
    “Postproduction Tuesday-Thursday will be a killer,” says Emily. “But we want it rough, real—”
    Featherstone leaps in. “Like
Homicide
, Harold, but sexy and fun and
up
. Or the MTV shows—you know, the black-and-white, the hotties in the lofts, vacationing, et cetera. If the kids were grownups with jobs.”
    “I get it,” Mose says.
    “Talk about how we leverage in the interactive piece,” Featherstone says. “Reality-dot-com.” Featherstone still welcomes any excuse to say “dot-com.”
    Harold Mose has become very alert.
    George doesn’t want to get into the bells and whistles. “It’s just a notion,” he says. “It’s not a major thing.”
    “Tell me,” says Mose.
    “Well, we could let viewers access the news show in progress during the week on a web site. Give them bits of raw footage and wire copy and real e-mails and story lists and draft scripts, as if they’re hooking directly into our intranet …”
    “Extranet, you mean,” Mose says.
    “Right,”
Featherstone says.
    “I guess so,” George says.
    “You’d put up all the in-house material for anyone on the net to see?” Mose asks. “That’s taking transparency a bit far, isn’t it? Sounds dodgy.”
    “No, we give them access to kind of a core sample, a
selection
of real material,” George says,