"I know how difficult this must be for you," Allison said, patting Victoria's free hand. "Why don't you tell us about a more normal day. How would that go?"
"Sorry." Victoria wiped her eyes again. "Jim and I would usually come in three or four hours before the show began. Chris helped too. Good talk radio takes prep. We would look at the Drudge Report, the New York Times, the Oregonian, the wire services, clips from TV shows that had run the night before ..." Her voice trailed off. "And then we would start to build the show. Jim always says there are three rules for great topics. One is picking a question that could be reasonably answered from at least two points of view. Like, should we build more nuclear power plants or more windmills? The second rule is, will the audience understand it? Like, should we have a national sales tax or a national income tax? And the third is, does it engage the listener? You have to tell them what's in it for them. Will they get higher taxes or better schools or free broadband or what? If you do it right, then they're eager to call in." Victoria massaged her temples. "And then we would make a show sheet. We scheduled a new topic roughly every half hour. Jim likSd to overbuild every show. To have more topics, more informatioi, than he could possibly use."
"Who decidgd on the topics?" Allison asked. She rubbed her own temple, mirroring Victoria, to build a bridge of nonverbal rapport. When Victoria tilted her head, so would Allison. If Victoria winced, Allison would do the same. Everything Victoria said, Allison affirmed with a nod or a subtle smile. Without words, she was telling her, You and me, we're in this together.
But underneath, Allison carefully weighed Victoria's words and actions. People either lied by commission, or they lied by omission. Did she cut her eyes to one side, stutter, stall, add emotion that she really didn't feel, vouch for her own veracity? How many lies had Allison heard preceded by the words I swear to God?
Victoria said, "Jim was always the one who chose the topics. Oh, he asked me what I thought, but in the end it was his decision. He was a little bit more old-school than me."
"What does that mean?" Nicole asked.
"I look at the research. And yeah, people want topics they can talk about when they come to work. But there's other information they want before that. When they listen to the radio, they want to be grounded. Jim thought that kind of stuff was a waste of time."
"What do you mean, grounded?" Allison leaned forward.
Victoria's face became more animated. "The first thing people want to know when they get up in the morning is, is my world safe?
Did we drop a nuclear bomb in Iraq? Was there an earthquake in the middle of the night? After they get that information, then they want to know what time it is, even if they have a clock. Somebody on the air telling them the exact minute it is lets them know they're still on schedule. So in between talking about stories and taking calls and interviewing folks, I would mention how many minutes past the hour it was. That might seem like just a way to kill time, but it's what listeners really want to hear. Once they are oriented, then they're ready to call in and talk about the big story of the day. But Jim felt it wasn't a good use of airtime."
"It sounds like Jim had a lot of opinions." Allison gave her a knowing smile.
"You're right about that. I even have a bell to ring when he's going a little crazy, you know, to tell him he needs to shut up."
Allison was surprised. "And he was okay with your doing that?" "He gave me the bell." Her smile faltered.
"How long have you worked with Jim?" Nicole asked. Allison could tell by Nicole's narrowed eyes and the set of her mouth that she continued to have reservations about Victoria.
"I was hired about a year ago. Aaron told me I would be billed as Jim's cohost. That's not exactly true. If our names are in print, Jim's is ten times bigger than mine. Aaron keeps saying I have to prove myself." Victoria rolled her eyes. "You try getting a word in edgewise. There's a reason Jim has succeeded in talk radio. It's like survival of the fittest. Only in talk radio, it's survival of whoever can keep talking. He who talks the loudest and the longest wins."
"It must have been difficult, playing second fiddle to him," Allison observed.
Victoria's smile looked like it had been ordered up. "Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, Jim and I got along great."
"But I saw a transcript of a time where you didn't agree with him, and he cut your mike." Allison tried to pin her down. "That must have been hard, having him just cut you off like that."