Stories We Tell: Newsroom PDX, #1

By L.J. Breedlove

Are We Journalists or Aren't We?

There was no doubt in Cage Washington's mind. The student-run Eyewitness News had to cover the Black Lives Matter protests in the streets of downtown Portland. He stood with his videocamera in hand, and waited for his best friend and editor-in-chief to make up his mind.
Cage had been down there at the protests last night. He watched the cops fire on protesters. Watched protesters break into the federal building. His own eyes were streaming from the tear gas. He was ordering gas masks for his videographer staff today — if he could find any in town.
"Yes," Ryan Matthews said. "Cover it." He smiled wryly at his friend. "Are we journalists or aren't we?"
"We are now," Cage said.

Join EWN in Newsroom PDX a new adult, political suspense series about Portland's protests, the pandemic, and college. Foul language, some sex, a bit kinky, lots of politics — the series and the city.

Book 1 in the series Newsroom PDX.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.J. Breedlove
• Release date: Jan 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224466511

L.J. Breedlove

L.J. Breedlove writes suspense novels of all kinds, police procedurals, historical mysteries, romantic suspense and political thrillers. And now a paranormal suspense series — Wolf Harbor. She's been a journalist, a professor, and now a fiction writer. (And a ranch hand, oceanography lab assistant, librarian assistant, cider factory line worker, and a typesetter. Oh, and worked in the laundry of an old folks home, something that inspired her to become an over-educated adult who would never be that desperate for a paycheck again.) She covered politics, among other things, taught media and politics, among other things, and writes political novels. You've been warned.

Book preview

Stories We Tell

Book 1, Newsroom PDX

There was no doubt in Cage Washington’s mind. The student-run Eyewitness News had to cover the Black Lives Matter protests in the streets of downtown Portland. He stood with his videocamera in hand, and waited for his best friend and editor-in-chief to make up his mind.

Cage had been down there at the protests last night. He watched the cops fire on protesters. Watched protesters break into the federal building. His own eyes were streaming from the tear gas. He was ordering gas masks for his videographer staff today — if he could find any in town.

Yes, Ryan Matthews said. Cover it. He smiled wryly at his friend. Are we journalists or aren’t we?

We are now, Cage said.

Join EWN in Newsroom PDX a new adult, political suspense series about Portland’s protests, the pandemic, and college. Foul language, some sex, a bit kinky, lots of politics — the series and the city.

Book 1 in the series Newsroom PDX.

Chapter 1

Friday 4 p.m., May 22, 2020, Portland, OR, Eyewitness News — Ryan Matthews heard thundering footsteps coming up the stairs to the newsroom. He was in his office, and even with the door shut, he could hear someone running. He got up and went to the door of his corner office — editor-in-chief for the student-run Eyewitness News — to see what was going on. He grinned when his two best friends appeared at the front counter and then ran into the newsroom.

Emily Andersen was in front. She had something in her hand and she was waving it around and laughing hard. What did she have? Ryan frowned, then recognized it — Cage’s hat. Ryan laughed.

Cage Washington was chasing her as she dodged around the computer tables that filled most of the room, a large two-story high warehouse loft. She scrambled onto the green velvet couch of the newsroom’s ‘living room’ — and actually managed a leap over the back of the matching green arm chair. The entire newsroom hated the green, but they’d scored them from university surplus after Alumni Affairs upgraded.

Ryan leaned against the doorframe and watched with amusement. He wasn’t sure why long-legged, agile women were likened to a gazelle — maybe he’d look it up sometime, because now he was curious — but it fit for Emily. He suspected she’d had dance in her background, although she never mentioned it. She said little about her past, now that he thought about it. At any rate, Emily was tall, slim with dark hair and blue eyes — a startling combination. She was a good-looking woman, but she did little to call attention to it. Like today — she had on black leggings and a loose white T, long enough to cover her butt, and sneakers. She probably had a jacket around someplace — although today was warm enough she might not. A mask, of course — a black one. No makeup. Her hair was cut short and framed her face, but she didn’t fuss with it. She gave off no signals that she was interested — not in him, not in Cage, not in anyone.

Oh, Ryan had made a pass at her when the three of them had first become a team back when he was a sophomore and Emily and Cage were freshmen just starting out at EWN. Of course he had. Emily had shut him down, not something that happened very often.

I don’t want to be your flavor of the week, she’d told him. I’d rather we were best friends for life.

Cage had laughed. Got your number, bro, he said.

She probably had, Ryan admitted, still amused by her response. To give himself some credit, he was still friends with a lot of the women he’d slept with. He considered that. Well, he was still friends with the friends he’d slept with, he amended. But one-night hookups? That was different, right? He didn’t have to count those.

Cage almost caught Emily when she reached her own workstation by the front counter. Computers were in pods of five, now, instead of six, and Emily, as news editor, had staked out one where she could see everyone who came to the front counter.

Emily shrieked as Cage lunged for her, but she pivoted, and ducked backwards into the studio area for the television station.

Careful! Ryan called out, because there would be hell to pay if one of them knocked over a camera or something. Ben Waters, the television station manager, must not be in his office or he’d be out there to throw both of them out of the area. And something told Ryan that Ben might get it done even though Cage had three inches of height and 50 pounds on him.

Ryan and Cage were about the same size, although Cage was probably a bit broader in the shoulders. A Black man who wore mostly black, today Cage had on black trousers, a black T-shirt that hugged a fine chest and, of course, a black mask. Ryan had never made a pass at him, but he could look, couldn’t he? And Cage was worth looking at — although he was as oblivious as Emily was. He shook his head — how had he ended up best friends with these two, who were so oblivious about their own sexuality? No one had ever called Ryan oblivious! But Ryan was pretty sure Cage was as straight as they came, and a pass wouldn’t be welcome. He shrugged. Sex was easy to find, friends weren’t.

Well, sex had been easy to find before Covid locked the city down. Ryan had never had to worry about sex — it was always just there for the taking. Hell, he barely had to make passes! He just said yes. Said yes, a lot, actually. But Covid had shut everything down. They’d been on lockdown for months now, and even if that changed, Ryan didn’t see mingling in bars in his future. And as for the party circuit where he’d once been a major player? No, that circuit was as shut down as the rest of town. Maybe when there were vaccines, but they were months away from that. In fact, if the Trump administration didn’t get their heads out of their asses, it might be a year away. God willing, there’d be a new president in the fall.

Sometimes Ryan worried they wouldn’t survive that long. Surviving the Trump presidency had been difficult enough before Covid.

Emily circled through the stage where the anchors sat, still holding that black hat above her head, and laughing. It did him good to see her like that. They’d all gotten increasingly grim as the lockdown wore on. Even the black hat seemed like a relic from the past — Cage had seen it at a thrift shop, and it made him laugh, he had said. It was the kind of top hat that men might have worn with a tux in bygone days. It seemed totally out of character for his very serious friend — all the more reason Cage wore it, he suspected.

Cage didn’t follow Emily onto the stage, but doubled back and caught her as she came off of it. He pulled her into a tight hold as he reclaimed his hat. Emily was doubled over with laughter, and Cage kept his arms around her. His eyes met Ryan’s ruefully. You’ve got it bad, my friend, Ryan thought. Why Cage hadn’t ask Emily out, he didn’t know. He’d been in love with her for years.

Well, he kind of did know. Cage didn’t want to risk his friendship with Emily, and Emily didn’t seem interested. Best friends forever, she’d proclaimed, unaware that Cage wanted something more than that. Or maybe she was aware, and it was her way of saying no without damaging their friendship. Even Ryan wasn’t sure, and he was much more practiced at reading a woman’s interest than Cage was.

Cage settled his hat on his head firmly and picked Emily up. She shrieked again, but she didn’t struggle as he carried her over to the couch and dumped her on it. She scrambled toward one end while Cage threw himself down in the opposite corner.

Ryan grinned. Not many men could pull off wearing that damned hat — Ryan wouldn’t even try. Well, unless he actually was in a tux. He had a flash of himself, a younger self, wearing a tux. But no hat, he pointed out to his hindbrain that tossed him images of a past he barely remembered. No one was going to argue with Cage about what he wore, not when he looked — and moved — like he could fight — and would. Although Ryan had never actually seen Cage fight, Ryan knew he could.

So we got enough material for tonight’s broadcast? Ryan asked. He joined them in the lounge area, taking one of the chairs. They were comfortable, he conceded, although he, like everyone else at EWN, would have preferred black leather couches. Well, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and these really had been a score. Alumni Affairs had money to spend on things like high-end couches — and replace them before they even showed any wear at all. EWN saved its money for equipment.

And student wages —which was a big reason why they’d fought so hard to continue broadcasting even as Covid shut everything down, including the university.

Emily was his news editor; Cage was the chief videographer. They’d been running Eyewitness News together for over a year now — unusual for the Media Board to approve a second year for an editor-in-chief, but Covid had already been a threat last February when he’d been asked to consider it. He’d agreed. He didn’t really know what he wanted to do next anyway, although he was going into year six at PSU. Then a month later, the governor had issued the stay-at-home order, and Portland State University declared they would do spring term online.

Sure, Cage said. More footage about all the things there aren’t to do in downtown Portland. And it’s Memorial Day weekend — so there are even more things you can’t do this year in Portland.

Two more weeks, Emily muttered. We just need enough content to run this sucker two more weeks.

Like most student media across the country, EWN only broadcast during the academic year. There would be a small group who worked through the summer — the three of them, a few writers, a photog maybe — just enough to keep their website current. Usually the editor of Folio, their print weekly, and the radio station manager worked summers too. But the television station went dark, and their station manager would head home to the Yakama reservation for the summer. Most of the writers dispersed. Ryan was struggling to put together his summer budget — it was why he’d come into the office early today. He glanced at the big clock on the wall in the television studio. Nearly 4 p.m. He could have guessed that from Emily and Cage’s arrival. There would be a few others drifting in shortly for the editor’s meeting.

But the newsroom felt huge and empty these days. Those who could do their work from home did so. It was safer, safer for them all.

Fifteen days, Cage corrected wearily. And counting down.

It had been a stressful spring, Ryan conceded. There was reason for the burnout he could hear in their voices. He was exhausted too — emotionally exhausted. Physically? Damn, he missed the gym. He needed a good workout. He imagined Cage did too — he was even more of a gym addict than Ryan. For that matter, so was Emily.

No gyms. No coffee shops. No bookstores. Hell, Ryan was even afraid to hang out in the shared living area of the Loft warehouse where he lived. Afraid he’d catch Covid from his loft-mates. And even more afraid he’d bring it home to them. He was out in the world more than they were, to be honest.

For one thing, he came here. For all the precautions he took, the truth was the more people you were around, the more likely you were to catch it. He looked around the newsroom, noting all of the changes they’d made — really, it had been Emily who had insisted. After Ryan had convinced the Powers That Be that EWN should be viewed as an essential service and allowed to stay in operation, Em had gone off to a workshop on stopping the spread of Covid. She’d come back, and directed them to remove a computer from each of the pods in the newsroom thereby giving them 6 feet of space between people. There was now a hand sanitizer dispenser at the front counter and one at each computer pod. There were wipes for everyone to use on the computers and the other equipment — you use it, you wipe it, she ordered, and people obeyed. She’d even managed to increase the airflow in the newsroom, and especially in the advertising office on the ground floor and the radio station upstairs. The editor of the Portland Review literary magazine hadn’t been into the office all term — he was working from home. Ryan expected him in next week to do the actual production, but he could read and edit at home just fine.

Turned out a lot of things could be done from home just fine. Most writers didn’t come into the office anymore. Editors came in and did their thing and cleared out as fast as possible.

Ryan hated it. He hated the empty silence of the newsroom. For nearly five years, this place had been home — a lively, noise-filled home that satisfied some deep need he had to belong. PSU was an urban campus, and like most urban universities it attracted a diverse, liberal student body. And the students who were the most liberal, eclectic and smart ended up at EWN.

One of Ryan’s early editors had called it a home for people who could never learn to color within the lines. Fair enough, Ryan thought. These were the radicals of PSU — not politically so much, although they were mostly liberals of various kinds — but lifestyle? Dear God.

His sports crew was all women — yes, he’d done it deliberately, just to futz with the athletic department a year ago when he became editor-in-chief, the first time around. Truth was, Joanna and her crew were so good, there hadn’t been the pushback he’d been expecting. Hoping for, if he was honest. He liked a good fight.

Most of the staff were geniuses, and when they actually went to class, aced them. They had to enroll and pass their classes, or they couldn’t continue to work at EWN. But no one said they had to graduate. EWN staff traditionally were on the six-year plan, and most of them had double majors. Ryan was majoring in Media Studies, Political Science, and was a part of the Honor’s College. He’d given up trying to remember what Emily was majoring in — she’d changed so often. Media Studies, he thought, but what else? He wasn’t sure — history at one point, he remembered, and a brief time in English — that had been memorable. Emily hadn’t been impressed with the faculty there — old fools, she called them. And she didn’t suffer fools well. Cage was in the film program and in Media Studies. And they all were planning at least one more year here.

And then? Ryan wasn’t sure what would be next for him. He was 24, a year older than the other two. It probably was time for him to think about graduating, just as that tyrant in academic advising had suggested when he’d gone in to register another minor. Get a job, the man had grumbled, stop sponging off your parents.

Hardly fair in his case, Ryan thought, still annoyed by the man. He had a job. He was the editor-in-chief of the fourth largest media outlet in Portland. Not that most people thought of them that way. They thought of them as a bunch of students playing around over here.

Both things could be true, Ryan thought. Not that there was a lot of playing around over here these days.

He needed to get laid, he thought sourly. He was becoming a curmudgeon, and even though he aspired to that someday, it hadn’t been at age 24.

Earth to Ryan, Emily’s amused voice interrupted his thoughts. You got your editorial written?

I do, he assured her. On why this Memorial Day we need to remember the Covid dead as well as our military dead.

Going to piss people off with it? Cage asked.

Ryan grimaced. Probably. Everything seems to piss someone off these days, he said. It used to be a challenge.

Cage snorted. Ryan grinned wryly. There was a reason why much of the administration and not just a few faculty called him a manipulative bastard. He liked setting people off. Get them stirred up — it was good for them.

Well, good, Emily said. You can copyedit then. I’ve got stuff in the queue and I haven’t heard from the copyeditor. He didn’t show up yesterday. I’ve sent a text and called. No telling if he’s being flaky or if.... She trailed off.

Or if he had Covid, Ryan finished in his head. So far they’d dodged that bullet, much to the surprise of the university. But he didn’t expect that to last forever. And why the hell hadn’t someone done something about this pandemic!

Well, he could always do his next editorial on that topic — again.

What about the broadcast? Ben Waters asked from behind. Ryan hadn’t even heard him come in, and he jumped.

You could announce your presence, Ryan said, a bit irritably.

Pay attention, Ben said. He walked around and took a seat in the armchair opposite Ryan. Ben Waters was young, 20 years old if that, but he was easily the best hire Ryan had made — ever. He was a member of the Yakama tribe, here at PSU for their Indigenous Studies and Film Studies programs, two difficult and competitive programs. And he spent 19 hours a week — according to his timesheets at least — here, running the television station. Ben spent a lot more time than that here; they all did.

And Ben was very good-looking. Ryan considered him as he sat down. The biggest downside of being the editor-in-chief was that he didn’t feel like he could make a pass at anyone who worked for him. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t say yes to those who made one at him, but it did seem a bit squicky to make passes at those who might hesitate to say no. Not that Ryan would hold a no against someone, but how would they know that? And Ben was straight. Ryan didn’t think it had even occurred to Ben that Ryan might be interested.

Ryan’s reputation said he was a man-ho — and most of the stories and rumors were about him as a heterosexual for all that he usually described himself as omnisexual — willing to eat anything. Great joke, and also true. But.... he sighed. Maybe it was just that the newsroom seemed awfully young these days.

Or maybe he was getting old?

Perish the thought.

Come on, he told himself. You can think about sex later. But right now? Think about the broadcast. There were only so many empty streets they could show!

But apparently Cage had found something. Dad told me about it, he said. Cage Washington’s father was the Rev. Clyde Washington, pastor of a Black Baptist Church in Portsmouth neighborhood. They’re doing a one-person-at-a-time salute to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial up in Washington Park. So I tracked down the organizer and got him to meet me up there and talk about it.

Good job, Ryan said with relief. Bianca coming in?

I’m here, she called from the entrance. And Brandon is here too.

Bianca Parks was a talented and beautiful 20-year-old who had become their go-to anchor this last term. Ryan thought she was probably the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen — and he’d seen a lot of beautiful women. She was Black and Latina, a fairly short woman with curves but not so much that the camera made her look fat. The cameras loved her, actually, and the professional television stations downtown were salivating at the thought of hiring her away from them. She said she wasn’t interested until after she graduated, and she had years to go before then. Smart, if she could just hold out. It had to be tempting. Every time she did a breaking news story, someone called.

Brandon, on the other hand, was graduating. He’d been a part of the anchor team for EWN for a couple of years now. He had an offer at some station out in the Tri-Cities in Washington State, and he was moving out there as soon as they wrapped things up in two weeks. Ryan had no desire to even go see Tri-Cities much less move there. But that was the nature of this field — you went out into rural cities to start your career. And if you were lucky, in 5-to-10 years, you might come back to a large city again.

Of course, in the current media climate, you were lucky to get a job at all. EWN alums did, or at least they always had. They had a good rep. Ryan wondered if that was still true? Maybe someone should check up on that.

But it was also one reason why most EWN staff were in no hurry to graduate. Why leave? You could build a decent life for yourself — work