Bad Break: A Novel

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The proverbial poop has hit the fan for me.

Here I am, called quite literally on the carpet of the executive editor's office, facing a conference table occupied by Calibretti, Limpett, Managing Editor Tim Kilgore, and Rory Fleischmann. Sadie Donohoe guards the door.

Notably absent is my guardian angel, young Mr. Brawley.

I know it is bad. Chatty Kathy Calibretti sits, red-faced and silent, eyes to the floor.

Fleisch's brow is furrowed. Kilgore looks wounded. And Limpett? Well, he just looks triumphant, even as Donohoe smirks.

Limpett is holding a stack of paper, gently waving it.

At this moment, I know what has happened. I've been busted playing digital vigilante.

Donohoe interrupts my silent revelation and asks, "How long Wilson? How long has this crap been happening?"

This crap is my alter ego, S.E. Rios, AKA InelAvenger.

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As newspapers have struggled since the early aughts to capitalize on the sheer volume of Internet users and profit off of traffic on news websites, one slow realization among executives has been that the more interactive the reporting process is the better and higher the internet traffic.

It is economic psychology one oh one: Consumers who feel connected to the reporting process and feel like their opinions are considered are somewhat loyal consumers.

At least, that was the theory behind the commenting set-ups. It didn't take long before they devolved into playgrounds where anonymous bigots roamed and bullied.

Some papers couldn't figure out an efficient way to regulate the comments without crossing too far over the line of stifling free speech

So rather than face that ethical dilemma, some gave up and killed the comment feature.

The Midway wasn't among the quitters and instead took a very liberal stance on reader comments, no matter how outrageous.

Hardworking reporters were doxed and anonymously accused of lying and fraud, called racial and sexual slurs, and so on.

Up late one rare Friday night that I'd stayed home, I clicked on the Midway's website and began reading the top stories, complete with reader comments.

The hottest story on the site was a profile by Turner of a retired nun who spent her life savings to establish a non-profit citizen's police watchdog group after a spate of indefensible police-on-civilian violence.

The article was well-researched and well-written and was as objective as humanly possible. But you wouldn't have been able to tell by the reader comments.

One anonymous note after another blasted Turner for being, "a dirty liberal," "a cop-hating bitch," "a stupid cunt," "a lying whore who sympathizes with ghetto criminals."

In a moment of anger, I began typing a comment of my own, a response to all the "brave" jackasses who had the nerve to call Turner names but not the nerve to name themselves and stand behind their comments.

Less than two minutes later, I had not only broken the Midway's rule against reporters commenting on any but their own articles and with their real names, but I'd also made myself a hypocrite. It only took me a moment to create a new email address on one of those free, cloud-based services, Yahoo! I think. Then I proceeded to DailyMidway.com and registered, as all commenters are required to do.

My commenter handle or nickname was IntelAvenger, and the "real name" I used to register IntelAvenger was S.E. Rios...serious. And though I had intended to comment just once – that evening on Turner's story, to put all the hateful commenters in check, the rabid approval my written smackdown received from other readers, fueled me the way heroin fuels a drug fiend: instant addiction to the knowledge that there were readers who still believed in us and supported an effort to fight back with facts.