On Second Thought(26)

At first, I didn’t know anything was amiss. I thought he just wasn’t that good at remembering the details when he called in. I was just down the street from the gunfire, he told me on the phone, but in our news meeting, it was a lot more dramatic—bullets streaking past my head. The big explosion that rattled the windows in the building down the street became a hair-singeing brush with a fireball.

Details can come back to people. It happens all the time. Besides, I trusted Ryan. He was the best boss in the world.

But it became a pattern. His SUV was fired on in Afghanistan. In Botswana, he held a dying AIDS patient in his arms. The news story—and ratings—were so much better, so much juicier when Ryan was part of the news, not just reporting it. And he was on the scene, after all. It was his job.

It didn’t happen all the time. Maybe every few months, but enough that my antenna started to twitch. I finally asked him about it over a late dinner in his office one night. It was hours after a hurricane had socked Brooklyn, and Ryan had been on the scene. “There I was, just trying to get a feel for the area,” he said, “and this woman called out from the subway. She was drowning, Ains! I ran down the stairs, into the water, which was completely filthy, by the way, and dragged her out. She was barely conscious.”

The antenna quivered. Why would he wait all day to tell me this? “Where’d you take her?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh, someone helped her to the hospital. She was fine.”

The antenna twitched.

“Did you get her name? It would make a fantastic piece.”

“I should’ve asked, right? Guess I was just too caught up in the moment.” Except he was a newsman. Getting the story was his life.

The antenna began voguing, Madonna-style.

I took a bite of my sesame noodles. “It’s funny. Sometimes it seems like you only remember the best details after you’ve had a couple hours.” I didn’t look at him as I spoke, and I kept my tone careful.

This was my boss. He made sixteen million dollars a year. He’d given me an incredible career, and I wasn’t exactly awash in life skills.

Ryan didn’t answer. Just looked at me and took another bite of his Reuben.

“I just want to be sure the story is...clean,” I said.

“Of course it is, Ainsley,” he said with that crooked grin America loved. “Sometimes it takes a little while for everything to filter through. The adrenaline, you know? Well.” There was a significant pause. “Maybe you don’t. Since you don’t go on scene.”

In other words, don’t push it.

Every news show probably did the same thing, right? I mean, it didn’t simply rain anymore—we had rain events. Fog warnings. Anchors were sent to stand in front of empty buildings in the middle of the night to create a sense of drama. “Earlier today, a shocking story...”

Really, what did I know? I wasn’t there. My antenna knew nothing.

Then came the point of no return.

It shouldn’t have been such a big deal. Really, of all of Ryan’s exaggerations to cause a frenzy, this one was the most harmless. But the frenzy happened just the same.

Ryan was doing a story on the cuts Congress had just made to veteran benefits. He was interviewing a vet who’d lost both her legs and part of her face to an IED. They all sat in the humble living room, the husband’s voice gruff as he spoke about his wife’s courage and determination, the American flag in its triangle box on a shelf behind them.

Ryan looked so gentle and concerned that I myself teared up. He asked about what the benefit cuts would mean to the family, how much her physical therapy (no longer covered) had helped, and what her prosthetics and additional plastic surgery would cost.

Then the kicker. The couple’s three-year-old wandered into the shot and climbed right on Ryan’s lap. “Hello, there, sweetheart,” he said, and he carried on the interview just like that. She fell asleep with her head on his shoulder.

You could feel America sigh with love.

I mean, talk about good TV! The noble warrior, her hardworking husband, their adorable toddler and America’s most trusted face. You couldn’t script that stuff.

Except apparently, you could.

Two weeks later, the New York Post ran the headline: Ryan Roberts Bribes Military Family for America’s Tears. An email had been leaked—the veteran’s husband wrote to thank Ryan for doing the story and apologized that it took so long for Callie to warm up to you. Hope your ears don’t still hurt from her crying!

Crying? There’d been no crying!

The email went on. The extra money sure will help. We really appreciate it.

Ryan could not be reached for comment.

Turned out, he’d offered the couple a thousand dollars to have their kid come sit on his lap, coached into the shot by the grandmother. It had taken quite a few tries before little Callie trusted Ryan.

Bill, the retirement-age cameraman, had leaked it. Though he’d been in on Ryan’s exaggerations all along (for a few extra thousand each time), this story was the straw that broke his back. He was a veteran himself. The couple admitted they simply needed the money for better prosthetics, due to the Congressional funding cuts.

Long story short, Congress got off their asses as if they were on fire.

A GoFundMe page was set up for the family, and more than $1.4 million was raised in the first day.