tushanshu | [video]

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[video]

[Brandon looks, for all intents and purposes, bored as hell.]

You know what this place really needs?

[Bit of a pause. Purely for dramatic effect, you understand. He is an actor.]

Twitter.

And if you have to ask me what that is, you're seriously dead to me. Like. Don't even try.

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Gee, that sounded like sarcasm.

[She laughs.]

Only some. I've written op-eds before. I'm just skeptical of the text-byte format.

What the hell's an op-ed?

[he is unfamiliar with the ways of your newspaper slang, Lois.]

[This is so exciting, Lois gets to educate a kid about the first love of her life!]

It's short for 'opposite the editorial page.' A lot of people get it wrong and think it means 'opinion-editorial.' Editorials are usually unsigned pieces from members of a paper's board of editors. On the page opposite are signed pieces by authors who aren't on the editorial board, and expressing opinions of their own.

That's where the term came from, anyway. It's a little different these days.

... And it's important.... why exactly?

It's called 'news' for a reason. Articles aren't a high school lit paper. They can't take much time, if any, for detailed analysis.

Plus, news stories are supposed to be impartial. They're not--anyone who tells you otherwise is lying--but they're supposed to be. Journalists have opinions too. Sometimes we take a little time out to share them.

It's all part of our duty to inform the public, really.

Gee, when you put it like that it all sounds so noble.

[Except 'journalist' is one step away from 'tabloid writer'.]

[She knows that tone.]

It is. But you know people. Most of them don't have much sense of nobility. Some of us still try, for whatever reason.

[Beat.] To uphold journalistic ethics, I mean. [She's not about to claim nobility in anything else.]

Yeah. Naivety at its finest.

[Tough guy attitude all up in here.]

[Teenagers are so cute--where 'cute' means exasperating and not necessarily endearing.]

Or sheer stubbornness. Someone has to, or the other guys have won.

[The army brat still lurks.]

Whoa, tinfoil hat time.

[Snort.]

A little more prosaic than that. 'The other guys' are pretty much some combination of anyone who thinks the truth is unimportant, anyone who would rather see their ideas rather than facts printed, and anyone incessantly stupid.

Hey, don't go talking like you're some kind of saint.

[Now she laughs.]

I am so far from one I cannot even begin to say. What I am is someone who takes pride in her work. That much I won't compromise on.

[Except that one time.]

More like, takes pride in having an opinion you can shove at other people.

[He is the rudest little shit, Lois. Feel free to smack him.]

Your pot can call my kettle black when you've written exposés on unethical and illegal experimentation, taken down major crime rings, and challenged a sitting president on possibly treasonous acts while in office.

And not until you've won a Pulitzer for them. Once you have, then we'll talk.

And you can talk after you've been brainwashed and tortured and experimented on like all my friends back home. I don't care about what you write. You don't get to sit there and spout self-righteous hyperbole at me until you've actually been in the goddamned trenches, lady!

Sorry to hear you get to live through hell too. I know what kind of scars it can leave on a kid.

I gotta ask, though: what part of your self-righteous anger at other people has anything to do with my professionalism?

I didn't say I lived through it.

You aren't being professional. You're bragging. There's a difference.

You call watching that happen to your friends not living through hell? Odd standards you have there.

If you hadn't questioned my professionalism, you wouldn't have gotten my CV.

I didn't watch any of it. Stop trying to cram your fake sympathy down my throat for something that didn't affect me at all.

[He hates that. More than anything, he hates pity.]

Yeah? And? Nowhere in there did you manage to convince me you wouldn't sell out for a story.

Sympathy isn't in the same galaxy as what I'd like to cram down your throat right now.

[Especially not now.]

Luckily your sophomoric pretensions of cynicism have convinced me not to care. I know I won't. You can think whatever you damn well want.

Threatening a minor? There's some journalistic integrity for you. Bravo.

[SLOW CLAP.]

Breaking out the real ten cent words now. Guess that means I hit a sore spot.

You do not get to pull that shit, in so many different ways.

[And she just went from angry to downright furious.]

Just because I'd like to introduce my fist to your face doesn't mean I have any intention of wasting the time, much less the bones I'd probably break on your incredibly thick skull.

Also, I am exerting no pressure for or against a story, nor am I doing so on the clock. Between them, this has nothing to do with compromising myself for a story.

Groundless ad hominem is utterly clichéd for juvenile attacks. Get new material.

Classy.

Whatever, babe. I'm out. This got boring real fast.

[A mocking little salute, and then he disconnects.]

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