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What Goes Around, Comes Around
There are certain established constants in the universe: gravity. The Laws of Motion. Politicians are lying liars who lie. Water is wet. The media will choose a sensationalist ‘story’ over the truth every single time, because sensation gets more attention.
You know, immutable truths.
And celebrities like Tony Stark, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, every superstar in Hollywood, and music megastars have all suffered the headache of those sensationalist lies. It’s annoying beyond belief, especially since so many people believe that crap even after it’s been definitively proven false, but, sadly, it’s the price they pay for being publically rich and famous.
Then a certain media outlet, one run by a moron whose IQ didn’t reach double digits, went one click-bait too far.
And the media industry as an entity imploded.
Approximately two months earlier, Tony Stark had been spotted at a local gelato shop with a teenage boy. Stark’s instincts being what they were, he’d reacted with the speed of a striking cobra and kept the boy’s face mostly hidden, but the damage itself was done and the media went crazy. Reporters stalked the man like he had the last cache of Dr. Pepper Zero that would ever be sold in the US and so many facial analyses were run on the blurry photo of the teenager that even stay-at-home moms whose primary source of TV was soap operas and Entertainment Tonight were sick of seeing it.
But their irritation was nothing compared the media’s frustration. They hadn’t been stonewalled this hard since Hillary Clinton lost in 2016.
So they were stewing in the pent-up aggravation of thwarted ambition and the guarantee of the juiciest story of the decade dangling juuuuuust out of reach, and each successive day without a word from Tony Stark or a new picture of him with the kid was driving all of them up the wall.
Then, despite his impressive security measures and even more impressive paranoia, a seriously enterprising reporter with the dull, uninspiring name of Amanda Johnson caught the pair on a sidewalk and managed to snap one clear, full-figure photo of Tony holding the mysterious boy tightly against his body, one arm wrapped all the way around his chest and a look on his face that could only be described as ‘deeply exasperated fondness’. The boy’s expression, looking up at Stark, was utter adoration, lightly underscored with chagrin that the vast majority of the public missed.
It was like it was meant to be in its absolute, stunning perfection.
Her triumphant return to the office, brandishing her camera like she was the Oklahoma Sooners’ head coach and it was the College Football National Championship Trophy, caused the expected massive party and earned her a nice raise.
It also marked the beginning of the destruction of her career, her reputation, and, ultimately, her life.
Because her editor, in a fit of sheer spite after yet another ignored — not denied, mind. It was flat-out ignored — request for comment, ordered her to write a very specific article to accompany the long-desired photo. And it must be noted that the reporter neither objected nor refused. The next day, the Holy Grail of Pictures was published.
But the headline took everyone by surprise . . . for about three minutes, maybe four. And then everyone jumped on the bandwagon — first the city, then the state, then much of the country.
The May-December Romance of the Century.
For nine days, every journalist and talk show in the country ran their mouths alongside that picture, speculating on how long Tony had been sleeping with the teenager and did Pepper Potts know — or was it a threesome — with zero response or even acknowledgement from Tony Stark or Stark Industries. In fact, it was complete radio silence, something else that annoyed the media to no end, while simultaneously fueling their relentless need to beat a headline to death, then grab a shovel and dig deeper, until they either finally forced a response or the next huge scandal broke/was manufactured, whichever came first. They did this because they were secure in the knowledge that the worst that would happen was Stark suing their company for an admittedly-large sum of money and/or threatening to destroy someone’s career.
The thing was, none of them were too concerned, because the truth was that their subscriptions and number of paid interviews had quadrupled after publishing that photo and headline, so they weren’t lacking in money. Also, even if Stark was successful in getting one of them fired, they would find employment at another media establishment within a week, because their stock value was an at all-time high after finally getting something on the new Tony Stark, the one who hadn’t had a scandal to his name in two years.
Thus, they felt free to blather on about a completely made-up story, getting more and more creative and cruel and crude and salacious with each day of silence. They couldn’t go any further because there was just the one picture, true, but people loved a hot scandal and juicy gossip, which was enough for the time being. But after Day 6, it started to get old even for them, though most of them would die before admitting this, and instead, they doubled-down on their comments and speculation and tried not to drop into a coma from repetitive dullness.
In other words, the media found itself at a stalemate of its own making for more than a week, something that hadn’t happened in anyone’s living memory . . . until the reporter who started it all just couldn’t help herself and ran her mouth one time too many.
She is filling in for one of the regular night anchors who is out with mono and bantering with the co-anchor when the now-iconic picture of Tony and the teenage boy is put on the monitor.
The man chuckles, gestures at the image, and says, “I know people are getting sick of it, but it’s just too compelling.”
Johnson giggles in response. “I know, Ted! It’s too sweet . . . and so juicy. I mean, it’s well-known that Tony Stark is a playboy who loves to play and doesn’t care who with, but just look at the kid! He certainly isn’t fighting or unhappy. And we all know that it does take two to tango.”
Then the picture of Tony and the teenager is suddenly replaced by one of Johnson being held with comfortable familiarity by a moderately-handsome boy wearing a sports jersey, her back to his chest, his hand just a liiiiitle too close to her breasts. He is looking at her with a deeply intent expression, while she is holding his forearm tightly and her eyes are closed.
The entire studio goes dead quiet. Well, everyone but the two anchors, who continue their sleazy, suggestive comments without noticing the sudden lack of sound and movement around them.
Then the image flickers and when it comes back, it has a caption.
More than a few people look sick once they read it and there is a lot of swallowing and shifting and even a few double-takes.
The Reporter and the Captain of Her Son’s Basketball Team: A Love Story for the Ages.
Ted is snickering at Johnson’s last comment when the unusual silence in the studio finally catches his attention. He sees that literally everyone in the room is staring (or, in several cases, gawking) at the monitor, so he turns back to see what’s got everyone so captivated.
His jaw actually drops open in pure shock when he sees the new image. He might have gurgled, too.
Johnson is a little slower on the uptake, so she doesn’t notice anything is wrong until she sees his dumbfounded reaction.
It takes a minute to really register, but when it finally clicks, her outraged shriek echoes through the room and shatters the eardrums of a decent percentage of her viewing audience. The subsequent, expletive-filled rant is educational, and music teachers all over the country are envious of her lung capacity.
Oddly, no one questions the immediate cessation of the broadcast.
And the studio has never emptied faster than it did that evening, leaving Amanda Johnson with the fading echo of a hideously incriminating picture and an even more suggestive headline, and no one to scream at. She doesn’t even have someone to vent to when she finally gets home, because her husband and son saw the broadcast and, in a complete coincidence, decided that a father-son camping trip was The Thing To Do That Weekend.
Left to her own devices, Johnson decides to fume on Instagram . . . and promptly makes the shocking discovery that people actually believe it. In less than two hours, people she’s known for years now think she’s not only cheating on her husband, but she’s doing it with a teenager. The vile comments from complete strangers she can mostly shrug off, as this is hardly the first time that’s happened, but the comments and speculation from people who should know better are crushing and something she has no clue how to handle.
It’s a million times worse because the photo is real, but taken completely out of context. The boy in the picture was on her son’s team last year, yes, but she had been picking Colin up from practice and tripped coming down the bleachers. Tanner had caught her before she face-planted several feet to the floor and held her upright until she was steady and able to stand on her own.
Her hysterical, furious mind cannot fathom why someone would take a picture of that, much less publish it more than a year later, and despite being a journalist who has seen some of the strangest motives humanity has to offer, she honestly can’t begin to grasp why anyone would lie like this. This kind of accusation is serious. It could ruin her life!
Then she learns that she’s not the only person to suffer this particular assault.
In front of her disbelieving eyes are nine other reporters who had incriminating pictures of them cuddling almost inappropriately with a minor publically posted and paired with equally tantalizing, but also somehow snide, captions or headlines.
To a person, they are all hurt, baffled, and outraged (and very afraid, though they refuse to admit it, because every single images is real) at being so viciously attacked, so cruelly slandered. What kind of horrible, sick person would do such a thing, and to so many people?
The unprovoked attacks continue for the next two days . . . but not the way anyone expected. Instead of continually assaulting the original ten victims, each day brings a fresh batch of people, which puzzles everyone. The victims have nothing at all in common, and whoever is finding these pictures and overriding live broadcasts to show them and publishing them in various newspapers and magazines leaves no trail, so there are no leads or suspects.
Helpless, enraged, isolated from the public, and trapped, the increasing pool of victims form a kind of support group, where they seethe in rage, vent their frustrations, and share their fears. They have all been sidelined, so they can’t even find relief or satisfaction in their work.
The less said about the visits from the police and social workers from CPS, the better.
But that added humiliation and not-so-subtle threat has them seething and they all vow that whoever has done this will pay, and pay dearly. How dare this asshole do something so mean, so damaging, so harmful, to them? How can anyone be so lacking in morals that they think this is okay?!
For three days, they all rant and vent and scheme and plot to destroy the person who is trying to destroy them, their fury righteous and their wrath justified.
Everything changes again on Day Four, thirteen days after the second picture and headline were first published.
Amanda Johnson is building up to a truly epic rant with Katy Dayton when Ryan Dumphries, a frenemy from a rival station, suddenly breaks into their FaceTime chat.
“Turn to NBC!!!” he orders, startling them both. Since that’s all he says, they blink in confusion at each other and obey, sharing another puzzled look . . . and their entire world implodes.
On the screen is Sherry Darnell, badly-dyed blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun that makes her look twenty years older, and wearing big, clunky glasses that add another decade. Her mouth is twisted in a tight, unhappy moue, and her eyes are burning with guilt.
“—fer my unreserved apologies to Tony Stark and his personal intern,” she is saying, and both women freeze.
<<<What?! What’s happening here?>>> Johnson wonders, too stunned to even breathe.
“Without bothering to verify any of it, I was openly complicit in spreading a story about him and his minor intern, a story that was not only false but extremely damaging and insulting and hurtful to both of them and their families.”
Darnell pauses, looks the camera dead-on, and swallows hard as her entire demeanor softens from angry guilt to guilty regret. “But most of all, I’m sorry that it took my own child pointing out the obvious to truly understand what I’d done, the harm I’d caused. I was outraged at the photograph that was published of myself with a male teenager and ranting about how sick and twisted it was to post something that was potentially so personal without permission, and how disgusting they were to add such a salacious, fake headline.” She swallows again, looking down for several seconds, then sniffs and looks steadily at her audience.
“So you can imagine how humbling it was for my teenage daughter to roll her eyes and inform me that since I’d done the exact same thing to Tony Stark — and then kept running the story, because I don’t know when to quit, and neither do my colleagues — was it really surprising that someone finally had enough and decided that suing the paper and demanding a retraction and apology wasn’t working, it was time to make the punishment fit the crime?”
She pauses, eyes filling with tears, and it takes a few minutes before she’s able to continue. “Then she told me that she didn’t feel sorry for me, that she couldn’t, because I brought it on myself — and at least the person in my picture isn’t her. What if whoever did this had used her image to make the point? What if she had to suffer the questions, the insinuations, the harassment, at school, at her job, even from random people on the street, the way that young man doubtless is? Then she looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘If I had done this at school, spread this kind of rumor about a classmate or teacher, you’d ground me for life and make me apologize in a press conference in front of the school, because it’s a despicable thing to do. And guess what, Mom? You did it. It’s time for a press conference.’ And then she walked away and so did my husband, leaving me with no argument and no defense. Because she’s absolutely right. I have done a horrible, unforgivable thing. So, Mr. Stark, I hope you and your intern will accept my sincere, humble apology for the harm I’ve done and the damage I caused and the pain I’ve inflicted. I can’t undo it, but I can and will keep it from going further. As of this moment, I’m resigning from NBC.”
Her speech echoes across the country, striking a myriad of emotions in the heart of every single reporter, editor, newsroom, and talk show that had run the story of Tony Stark screwing his teenage intern without a shred of proof or even a word from anyone to confirm or deny. Every single one of them had published straight-up lies so they could get viewers and subscribers and ratings, secure in the knowledge that the only potential consequence would be an outside settlement and maybe an apology they don’t mean, and their arrogance has finally bitten them in the ass.
For Amanda Johnson, the original instigator, her world is decimated. There are now people who genuinely believe she is a cougar, a child predator, a pedophile, because an anonymous hacker (everyone knows it’s Tony Stark, but his name is never once mentioned out loud) published her crimes for the world to see and gawk at . . . and those same people believe the same awful things about him. Because of her. Because of her relentless need to find a good, juicy story, or make one up if there’s nothing to find, and put her name out there so she would get readers and loyal followers and build a reputation for herself.
Well, she has done that. Decisively. The fact that that reputation isn’t complimentary or career-building is no one’s fault but hers.
Acknowledging that truth breaks something in her soul, because Amanda Johnson is a woman who will die before admitting she’s wrong. But when her husband, son, parents, grandfather, sister, cousins, friends, co-workers, and complete strangers all agree that she deserves every second of this humiliating punishment — in fact, it’s universally agreed that every person, newsroom, news station, newspaper, magazine, and talk show that published and ran her story has it coming — her defiance shatters. She doesn't notice the loss, because it’s buried in the destruction of her life.
An unprecedented, truly surprising number of people are fired after Darnell’s confession and apology, and there are an equally surprising number of resignations as well. Almost none of them remain in journalism or the media world, and those that survive the fallout have stagnant careers. There are more on-screen apologies in one week than there have been since the dawn of television, and the number of both apologies and printed retractions is mind-boggling and probably record-breaking.
Amanda is one of those who is fired, because she cannot bring herself to admit her culpability, her guilt, to anyone but herself, and that lack of integrity tells her superiors she can’t be trusted. Not that they are any better, as many of them discover to their horror, but still: she is the one who set the entire avalanche in motion, so it’s only fitting that she take the brunt of the fallout. Her marriage survives, barely, but her son remains distant for the rest of her life, and she doesn’t get to know her grandchildren.
The worst part is that they don’t think she cheated, which would be understandable, given the circumstances.
Instead, they are sickened that she lied to begin with and appalled that she was so careless and unconcerned about the damage her words would cause. But it’s her refusal to sincerely apologize that kills any remaining trust, and this is a scenario that will also echo across homes throughout the country.
The media industry will never completely recover from the widespread, open disgrace it so eagerly brought on itself; the overall number of viewers and subscribers plummets so hard and so fast, Wall Street genuinely fears it will create a mini-recession. Fortunately, the same people who so greedily devoured the salacious lies they were fed — while roundly condemning the machine that fed them — don’t let such silly things like a lack of journalistic integrity keep them from eagerly reading the next article and avidly devouring the next picture, so the market holds. Barely, but it holds.
Still, the majority of people lose most, if not all, trust in the media, especially the news, which actually forces the news industry to be mostly-honest for the first time in . . . well, ever. The irony escapes too many people to count.
But the final insult, and the most fitting punishment?
Tony Stark, the man who started it all, never says a word. There isn’t a single acknowledgement of any of it from him. No condemnation, no gloating, not even a ‘no comment’.
Still, they all know. They know what they did and what he did and why he did it.
As they huddle in the ruins of their shattered lives, they finally come to understand that no matter how well anyone plays the game, there’s always someone better.
And what goes around, comes around.
~~~
fin