The Nominee

Twenty-Six

I PACED BACK AND forth in the hushed, carpeted hallway, wondering what words were being spoken, what direction was being followed on the other side of the oak-paneled double doors that led to the executive boardroom of The Boston Record.

Quiet as I was, try as I might, I couldn’t hear a damned thing except the sounds of my uneven breathing and the gentle drip of my burgeoning ulcer. I’ll confess that I was perspiring under my navy pin-stripe suit jacket, meaning I wouldn’t and couldn’t take it off. The only rule of business of which I’m even remotely aware goes as follows: Never let them see you sweat.

I knew from Cal Zinkle that Brent Cutter was making his presentation to a sympathetic committee just before mine. I pictured him sitting at the head of the table, his hair slicked perfectly back, his demeanor one of entitled confidence, talking the Harvard Business School talk of skill sets and repurposing and optimum performances and misintermediation. The damned board would probably be splattering drool all over the shiny wood tabletop, forgetting to ask even a single question about his views on community journalism or the future use of theRecord ’s foreign bureaus. “Asshole” is a word that came immediately to mind.

Helpless is another, mostly because that’s how I felt. It’s a family-owned newspaper, and a member of that ownership family seemed ready to throw it all away. And here I was, at the place I loved more than any other, answering to a group of strangers that I barely knew, trying to salvage a business that wasn’t mine.

The door swung slowly open, causing me to freeze in place and lean coolly against the wall as if I was just waiting for the local tavern to open so I could go in and get my first drink of the day, if I drank this early in the day, which I usually don’t, though now could be the potential exception.

Out walked Brent Cutter. He wore a fashionable brown suit. He padded toward me, shot a smug look in my direction and said in a whimsical tone, “Good luck.”

How do you reply to that? I chose not to, mostly because I couldn’t think of anything appropriately witty to say, though I did stare him in the eye as he sauntered past me, staying completely still. Once he was gone, I turned to make my way into the boardroom when the door pitched open again. This time, out walked Terry Campbell, carrying a briefcase in one hand and a legal pad in the other.

He looked at me with that wrinkled, bulldog face of his, surprised but not flustered. “Good afternoon, Jack,” he said, as if we just ran into each other in line for an Oreo McFlurry at the neighborhood McDonald’s. I quickly recalled my vow to break his grubby hands if he put them on my newspaper again, shot a glance into the boardroom, and decided that this probably wasn’t the time or the proper place to fulfill prior promises. Instead I gave him an imperceptible nod and walked into the room.

Cal Zinkle was standing right inside the door. All the other directors were milling about, pouring cups of coffee or assembling cheese and crackers on the side buffet, many of them talking to each other in inaudible tones. Cal put his arm over my shoulder, and before he could say anything, I said in a voice just north of a whisper, “I’d like to kill that son of a prick.”

“Easy, tiger,” he replied. “We need you on your best behavior right now.” He paused and steered me outside the double doors, back into the hallway that was empty again. He let go of my shoulder and said, “He was making his play. Cutter’s behind him one hundred percent. They’ve struck an agreement. Campbell buys the paper and Cutter becomes publisher, with an arrangement to keep theRecord under local control for the next three years — Brent and this board being in control.”

I knew Brent had no small amount of weasel blood coursing through his body, but I must have missed it when he actually grew whiskers and a big, bushy tail. I knew this was coming. I knew the inevitability of it all. But the sight of Campbell, right here in the boardroom ofThe Boston Record, sent tremors of anger through my exhausted body.

Zinkle added, “I know it’s infuriating, but right now you don’t have the luxury of anger. You have to focus. If you want to make sure thatThe Boston Record remains an independent newspaper with a top-notch publisher, then you have to walk inside that room and give one hell of a presentation.”

I’m a natural pessimist, which isn’t always a bad thing. It gets your hackles up and your sensors firing and pushes you harder to achieve what you want to attain. With that in mind, I asked, “Are you telling me the committee is inclined to go with Campbell and Cutter?”

“I’m telling you, he has made a formidable and attractive offer.”

I shook my head in disgust. I felt the hallway, the world, spinning all around me. Up was down and down was up. There were no touch-stones of normalcy any more, none of the serenity of sanity. I asked, “You got my message on Campbell’s funding of the militant group, Fight for Life, right? He contributed to the bombing over at MIT.”

Zinkle shook his head. “He’ll disavow any knowledge of the group. He’ll say he had no idea it was a violent organization. And the board here will tell you that’s his private business. What the board cares about is the dollars and cents, the stock price.”

I stared at him for a long moment, trying to process what I was hearing, though damned if I was able. So I said, “Fuck it. Let’s go.” And we walked into the room, me ahead of him.

The boardroom ofThe Boston Record is a majestic place, almost antithetical to the pathological disorder of the newsroom downstairs. The table itself is long and wide and glows in the rays of sun that stream through the unadorned floor-to-ceiling windows with the unimpeded view of the downtown skyline. Various directors — there were five of them in the room — came around the table to shake my hand, then guided me to one of the highback leather chairs at the head of the table.

The directors present were Slade Harmon, one of the more respected black ministers in town; Katrina Pelletier, the editor emeritus at theChristian Science Monitor —“emeritus” in this case being the Latin word for “forced out”; Jacob Higham, a successful hotelier, Jewish activist, and, not coincidentally, John Cutter’s roommate at Yale; and Barnaby Stone, manager of the world’s largest mutual fund. Zinkle made five.

I had no notes with me, and truth is, barely any wits. As I made myself comfortable, Katrina Pelletier, who looks like Janet Reno, only without the good looks and gushing charm, said to me, “As you know, Jack, we are in an emergency session of the executive committee of the board of directors to address the tragic circumstances of Paul Ellis’s death. Our first priority is to select a new publisher who can lead theRecord at this most difficult time. In that regard, I’m glad you are able to join us today. Do you have any sort of statement you’d like to share with the committee?”

All right, I obviously should have been prepared for this question. I sat there looking at her, thinking of Brent Cutter, whose pretty-boy face I’d like to kick in, of Terry Campbell, whose face really can’t be kicked in any more so maybe I’d pummel his privates. Then I thought of the men and women downstairs, people like Mongillo and Steele who dedicated their lives to the bread-and-butter work of this newspaper.

“I’ll be very brief,” I said, folding my hands in front of me and looking down at a distant spot on the table. “I’d like to keep this newspaper under Cutter-Ellis ownership, and under Cutter-Ellis control, even if one of the Cutters doesn’t seem to want it anymore. The family has given one hundred and twenty-seven years to this publication. They’ve taken it through the Great Depression and countless recessions. They’ve seen it through two world wars, Vietnam, a new war against terrorism. But most of all, the paper has taken its identity from the city, and given the city some of its identity in return. We as a newspaper reported on this city through the violent angst of busing, through boom times, through horrible downturns. And always, always, always, we maintained the highest level of quality, sometimes at considerable cost, because when you’re a member of the Cutter-Ellis family, when you run a newspaper this great, when you’re in a city as sophisticated as this, that’s just what you do. If Brent Cutter can’t see himself clear to play a major role, then I offer myself, because at this point, the paper, its quality, is larger than the family itself.”

Someone somewhere was playing “America the Beautiful,” though I fear I was the only one who could hear it.

I added, “This isn’t a chain newspaper with a corporate office in a city where few of us have ever been. It never has been, it was never meant to be. It’s owned by Bostonians and run by Bostonians. Paul Ellis sure as hell knew that. He told me as much when I sat with him in the Public Garden four days ago, just an hour before he was killed. He wanted to reject this effort by Terry Campbell, or perhaps more accurately, defeat it. You should all want to do the same.”

I concluded, “To that end, I offer myself as a candidate for the next publisher in the rich tradition of the Cutter-Ellis family. I have a vast knowledge of the newsroom. My own father worked for more than three decades in the pressroom. I have an impeccable reputation in this community where I was born and raised. And I will keep this newspaper under Cutter-Ellis control, which is exactly where it belongs.” I paused, then added: “I’d be honored to answer any and all of your questions.”

I would have liked loud applause and hooting and hollering. What I got was silence and Katrina staring at me like a spectator might look at an animal in a zoo exhibit, something, perhaps, in the Jungle House. Before she could say anything, Barnaby Stone spoke from the other side of the table.

“Mr. Flynn, very nice of you to take the time to come up and visit with us today. I’ve looked over your career history, which is certainly impressive in its journalistic credentials and background. But I have to ask you, do you have any management or business experience which we are not currently aware of?”

As he asked the question, he gave me a squinty look, I suspect more for the dramatics than for lack of vision.

I replied, “None whatsoever, but I can tell you that you should never end a sentence with a preposition, as you just did.”

Just kidding. I said, “I ran a lemonade stand for three weeks in the summer between third and fourth grades, and our revenues averaged between $3.75 and $4.20 per week.”

Kidding again. Now was not the time for humor, at least with these people, and in my current frame of mind, I don’t even think I could get a rise out of the people who make the laugh track forCheers.

What I really said was, “My expertise, or rather my strength, is in the newsroom, on the journalistic side of things. I’ll admit that up front. But I’ll also tell you, in this complicated day and age, with twenty-four-hour cable television and the Internet bombarding every house, that it’s not a bad strength to have. On the business side of things, I’ll learn it, and in the meantime, and maybe for all time, I’ll hire someone who knows that end of things, someone who I can trust.”

Stone again: “So you’ll concede that you don’t know the business end of this company, the circulation reports and the budget figures and the revenue goals and all the complicated equations that lead from one to the other?”

“I know the journalism, which is the point of this company.”

Stone replied, his voice growing less polite and more firm, “Part of the point, sir. The thousands of shareholders this paper has would certainly argue that this being a capitalist society and theRecord being a publicly traded company, its foremost point is to make money.”

“And to make money,” I replied, trying not to betray the well of exasperation building up within me, “we have to have one hell of a good product to offer, no? So we need someone to massage that product, to oversee it, someone who knows what good journalism is and what it means to the community.”

Jacob Higham cut in from the far end of the table. “So if the journalism is so paramount to you, why not become the next editor of theRecord rather than publisher? As a matter of fact, Mister Campbell and Brent Cutter made that very proposition not twenty minutes ago. They were both in agreement that you would make a stupendous editor-in-chief.”

Were they now? Clank. That sound you’re hearing is my jaw hitting the floor. Thank the good Lord it’s not made of glass or I’d be, as they say, a broken man.

For the record, as we like to say, the newspaper hierarchy goes as follows: Publisher, who is tantamount to the chief executive officer; president, who effectively runs the institution day-to-day; editor-in-chief, who runs the newsroom side of a newspaper; and under the editor, the various lower-level editors, bureau chiefs, reporters, and copy editors.

My first impulse was to get up, storm down to the president’s office, and throttle the gaseous snot who sits in there. My second impulse was to stare coldly at Higham and announce, “First off, we currently have an excellent editor of theRecord. Second, I am not available to be either the editor or the publisher of aBoston Record that is no longer owned by the Cutter-Ellis family. I will not — repeat: will not — oversee the dismantling of what is one of the foremost newspapers in the United States and, indeed, the world.”

And that’s what I said.

Silence. I could hear the heater purr from the corners of the room. Someone clinked a coffee cup against its saucer. Katrina asked in that dullish voice of hers, “Do you understand what minority shareholder rights are?”

No, actually, but I wasn’t about to let her know that, and it’s tough to tell with this woman whether she’s being kind or slicing and dicing you five ways from hell. I replied, “I know that every shareholder of this company has a right to expect that we will produce the very best newspaper possible, and that in the process, we’ll also turn a profit. Paul Ellis, and John Cutter before him, liked to say that good journalism made for good business, and vice versa. I’d wholeheartedly agree with that.”

Stone didn’t seem to be reading from the same business philosophy book. He cut in again and said, “Minority shareholder rights mean that this board you’re looking at right here has to do what’s in the best interest of the shareholders. If an offer is made for the company which significantly inflates the stock price, we have no real choice but to take it. If we don’t, we face the prospect of a long and costly court suit and a deflated stock position. That sets us up as a prime target for a takeover by someone else.”

There was a pause. Someone tried to speak, but Stone cut them off. “This compromise, leaving the paper under local control for three years, is about as good a deal as we can cut — certainly better than anything I would have expected.”

More silence. I sat there looking at my hands. It didn’t seem like there was anything else to say to these clowns. It didn’t seem like there was anything left to say to anybody these days.

Katrina spoke up. “Jack, there is, of course, the option of you putting together another purchasing group and taking the newspaper private.”

An excellent idea. And I think I’ll head home and have sex with each and every one of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders tonight. I mulled that a moment — the purchase, not the cheerleaders. Paul had mentioned the same point Monday morning, but if someone of his immense financial abilities thought it impossible to put the funding together, I didn’t think there was much of a chance for me, considering I barely have my multiplication tables memorized.

I shook my head and looked down at the table, catching a scant reflection of myself. “We’ve looked into that already, and it doesn’t appear to be plausible,” I said.

I looked around the table for a moment, letting my eyes fall, then focus, on Cal Zinkle, who had been uncharacteristically, conspicuously — obnoxiously — silent through the entire session. He averted my gaze. Slade Harmon said, “Jack, none of this is personal, and none of this we take lightly. We’ll give your views every possible consideration.”

Forgive me, Slade, for being less than enthused by your leadership.

I should have said that, but I didn’t. Instead, I did my best Zinkle imitation, meaning I said nothing. Katrina said, “Well, Jack, unless you have anything else you’d like to add, I think the committee has quite a few very important issues and options to talk over.”

I looked around the table from one to the next, my lips pursed and my head slowly shaking.

I said, “When you sit in this room mulling the future of this great institution, I just hope you take into consideration the relationship between the Cutter-Ellis family, this newspaper and this city that dates back to the last century. We are all nothing more than stewards of a publication far more important than any one of us. Brent Cutter happens to be a particularly bad steward, which is why so much power is placed in the board. You basically have a choice: You can maintain, and even improveThe Boston Record, and thus, the city it serves. Or you can destroy it.

“And if you choose the latter, you have to ask, how many residents will be left uninformed. How many politicians will be left unsupervised. How many lies will never be reported. How many bribes will go uncaught. How many campaign promises will be willfully broken. All because this town will no longer have a newspaper with the ability to represent the people and the intelligence to give voice to the voiceless.”

With that, I pushed my leather chair back and strode for the door. No one even bothered saying good-bye.