The Evening News Read Free Page B

home to New York. So was Graham Broderick . The trio of Partridge, Rita and Minh was a frequent working combination . On their most recent trip, O'Hara had been with them, as sound recordist , for the first time. He was young, pale, pencil-thin, and spent most of his spare time absorbed in electronics magazines; be had one open now . Broderick was the odd man out, though he and the TV-ers often covered the same assignments and mostly were on good terms. At this moment, however , the Timesman-rotund, dignified and slightly pompous-was being antagonistic . Three of the group had had a little too much to drink. The exceptions were Van Canh, who drank only club soda, and the sound man, who had nursed a beer for a long time and declined more .” Listen, you affluent son of a bitch ,” Broderick said to Partridge, who had pulled a billfold from his pocket, "I said I'd pay for this round, and so I will .”
    He put two bills, a twenty and a five, on a waiter's tray on which three double scotches and a club soda had been delivered .” Just because you pull down twice as much as I do for half the work is no reason to hand the print press charity .”
    "Oh, for chrissakes !”
    Rita said .” Brod, why don't you throw away that old cracked record .”
    Rita had spoken loudly, as she sometimes did. Two uniformed officers from the airport's Department of Public Safety force, which policed DFW, had been walking through the bar; they turned their heads curiously. Observing them, Rita smiled and waved a hand. The officers' eyes took in the group and, around them, the assortment of cameras and equipment on which the CBA logo was prominent. Both DPS men returned the smile and moved on . Harry Partridge, who had been watching, thought: Rita was showing her age today. Even though she exuded a strong sexuality which had drawn many men to her, there were telltale lines on her face; also, the toughness which made her as demanding of herself as of those she worked with came through in imperious little mannerisms, not always attractively. There was recent reason, of course-the strain and heavy work load which she, Harry and the other two had shared through the past two months . Rita was forty-three, and six years ago was still appearing on camera as a news correspondent, though far less often than when she was younger and more glamorous. Everyone knew it was a rotten, unfair system that allowed men to continue as correspondents, to keep on facing the camera even when their faces revealed them to be growing older, whereas women couldn't and were shunted aside like discarded concubines. A few women had tried to fight and beat the system-Christine Craft, a reporter and anchor-woman , pursued the issue through the courts, but had not succeeded . But Rita, instead of starting a fight she knew she wouldn't win, had switched to producing and, behind the camera instead of in front of it, had been triumphantly successful. Along the way she had badgered senior producers into giving her some of the tough foreign assignments which almost always went to men. For a while her male bosses had resisted, then they had given in, and soon Rita was sent automatically-along with Harry-to where the fighting was fiercest and the living hardest . Broderick, who had been pondering Rita's last remark, now said, "It isn't as if your glamour gang is doing anything important. Every night that tiny news hole has only tooth pickings of all that's happened in the world. How long is it-nineteen minutes ? ”
    "If you're shooting at us sitting ducks ,” Partridge said amiably, "at least the print press should get its facts straight. It's twenty-one and a half .”
    "Leaving seven minutes for commercials ,” Rita added, "which, among other things, pay Harry's excessive salary which turns you green with jealousy .”
    Rita, with her usual bluntness, was on the nose about jealousy, Partridge thought. With print press people, the difference between their own and TV news pay was