While I Teach Him the Ropes

Richard Lee looked at the facts he was sent on his screen. Five years had jaded him to what was truth and what was not. As a youngster, he always thought that journalists were the only reliable people in the world to get the story from. They risk their lives and dig deeper than anyone else to get the truth and tell the people about it.

He came to the real world of journalism with this ideal only to have it smashed. His professors always told him to tell it from an angle. To have a slant on his story. Now he knew what they were preparing him for.

Sighing, Richard started typing. Angle: liberal. Of course, he was in a liberal news outfit his story had to fit within their framework and their audience. Jazz it up so that people will eat up the news. Okay, so leave those parts out, highlight this, and take this a little out of context. He paused sighing as the words turned his stomach and pinched the bridge of his nose as the world bustled around him.

"Richard."

Richard shook his head and looked up to see his editor, Eddie, and a man he never saw before loom over his desk.

"I want to introduce you to our new researcher, Matt. Matt, this is one of our best journalists, Richard. I want you to teach him everything you know. He's promising, but still new. Use him if you need more information and show him how to write. The kid wants to be a journalist. I'll leave him in your hands." Eddie slapped Matt on the back and winked at Richard before leaving them.

The kid looked like he was a smiling airhead, but the eyes looked…jaded. Like he expected everything to be horrible. Like he expected everything to be a lie.

Well, he wasn't wrong.

"So, Matt. You want to be a journalist?"

Matt shook his head. "No. Just a researcher, but Eddie says he wants me to go to journalism."

"Maybe you have the talent and he sees that. Journalists make good money once people actually start listening to them, you know. You can have bigger aspirations than just being a researcher."

"I'm okay. Right now, I'm still trying to get a feel of things. I don't even know if I'm going to stay."

Richard shrugged his shoulders. Maybe the kid knew more about what to expect when entering the media. Maybe unlike him, Matt didn't buy into those shit idealisms that movies and shows put on about the integrity of the media and the journalistic trade even before he came to work for one. Or maybe he was just that typical young upstart who doesn't want to be tied to a job. In any case, Richard refused to label him a typical millennial because, age-wise, he was one himself. Just a bit on the older side.

"Suit yourself." Richard glanced at his unsaved writing and saved it before turning off his monitor. He stood up and clapped Matt on the back. "Okay, sport. What do you say I show you around the office first? You're new so you might be tasked some odd jobs. Best know where you're headed."

Richard tried to be as cheerful as he could, joking around, and surprisingly, the haze in his eyes was gone replaced by a youthful spirit. Laughing and joking, Matt's aged eyes got so much younger, he thought he imagined the jadedness when they first met. But he saw it. And one thing Richard learned from experience is to never second guess what you see. They were usually the truth covered up when they're gone.

"You haven't gotten through the whole company yet," Matt said, "But that's okay. You'll get to know your way around soon. For now, let's get to work."

"So, what do I do now?" Matt asked, making Richard feel every bit the senior he was.

"Actually, they don't have one for you yet, but…tell me, why did you want to become a journalist?"

"A specific truth?"

"The truth of things." Matt looked at Richard in the eye. "What the world is really like. What makes it tick. What society and humanity really are."

Richard sighed as he looked at his junior. Under those happy-go-lucky eyes, was a grim determination. The kid was not going to be happy about the world. He knew he wasn't. Truths with a drop of bias was still a lie. Like a glass with a drop of poison was still poison.

"I'm telling you now, you'd be disappointed." He paused looking at Matt's still-determined face and shook his head. "You want to work on the truth? Fine. I'm looking into something. Hopefully I'll win a Pulitzer for this, but it's not going to be easy and this can't get in the way of your job here. Right now, they don't have a job for you so, consider this a side job."

Matt shrugged. "I don't mind. I don't have anything to do anyway. What are we going to investigate?"

"Christopher Eckert. I really think that man has a hand in wars."

Matt grinned. "The billionaire philanthropist? Interesting."

Richard was good at reading people, but Matt baffled him. One moment, he appeared like a jaded, old man, another moment he would be like an interested kid who just wanted to have fun, and then he went on to looking like he knew the secrets of the world. He had met so many people in his life with his job, but this kid was making him spin. Was he schizophrenic or something? Bipolar?

Well, they did say that there was a fine line between being a genius and a savant. He just hoped that Matt was as good a writer and researcher as Eddie claimed him to be.