Charm City by Laura Lippman

asshole
Wynkowski files a lawsuit. Let me stress, he has no fucking grounds for
a libel suit. No errors have been brought to our attention to date, and
we think he meets the test for a public figure. He'd have to
prove actual malice. Still, we prefer the general public not know the
story ran by—ran early. It could erode readers'
confidence in our product."
    Product .
Colleen Reganhart had definitely gone over to the other side. When you
were a reporter, it was a story, an article, your life's
blood on the page. The higher you went in the organization, the more it
resembled canned ham.
    "Of course, if you called the FBI,
or even the Baltimore police, you couldn't control what
happened to the information they uncovered," Tess said
innocently, as if thinking out loud. "If it got out the story
ran by mistake—excuse me, that the story ran early —and
there are any in accuracies in the story, Wink Wynkowski may be able to
prove actual malice, which is essential to a public figure who wants to
bring a libel suit. Certainly it would be an interesting test case,
probably the first of its kind."
    Reganhart raised her eyebrows, dark,
straight lines that made her look as if she were constantly frowning.
"Perhaps. Our lawyers tell us he could prove negligence in
our security system. But that's all .
We stand by our story. In fact, we're quite proud of having
exposed this fucking charlatan." With her raven black hair,
bright blue suit, and salty tongue, she brought to mind the infamous
mynah bird who had been removed from the Baltimore zoo for cursing out
visitors.
    "So why did you hold such a hot
story to begin with?" Tess asked. "I know you
don't have any real competition, but I think you would want
to run this story before Wynkowski signed a letter of intent with an
out-of-town basketball team. It would have been heartbreaking to report
that the city was getting a team, then announce the owner was never
going to survive the NBA's scrutiny. And what if the city had
gone ahead and started on the new arena, only to find out Wink was
already entertaining offers for his team?"
    Mabry seemed to come into focus for a
second, like an autistic child enjoying a moment of clarity.
"News judgment is not a science, Miss Monaghan. Interests
must be balanced. Men do outrun their pasts. It was not our role to
judge Mr. Wynkowski's fitness as an NBA owner, or to shape
the decision the league will make. We do not wish to be
‘players' in that sense. We had to ask ourselves,
what is relevant? What is fair? Is it really necessary to reveal Mr.
Wynkowski's unpleasant but largely trivial past? In the event
we do so, shouldn't he have the right to know who his
accusers are? That, most of all, was the real issue here. It is still the issue that concerns me."
    His piece said, Mabry retreated back into
his private world. Pfieffer hadn't spoken since his opening
remarks, but he was paying careful attention, watching the interplay
among his top editors with great interest. Colleen glared at Lionel,
while Jack Sterling doodled on a legal pad before him.
    "So the story is fine and everyone
lives happily after—except, obviously, Wink. What am I
supposed to do?"
    Again, Colleen Reganhart and Jack Sterling
began speaking at the same time. Again she cut him off.
    "Tomorrow, our assistant managing
editors, Marvin Hailey and Guy Whitman, will walk you through the
normal procedures here and give you a list of people to interview. We
don't expect you to find the person responsible, but we
assume you can eliminate the majority of the people who were in the
building at the time."
    "Can't your security
system at least narrow down who had left for the night?"
    "Unfortunately, we put in a new
security system last fall, after the old system was, um, breached. The
new one breaks down all the time, and has been down for two weeks now,
forcing us to prop open the doors with trash cans. But I'm
sure you'll find most of our employees were home with their families the night this