Archive of Our Own

WHERE ARE WE? PTMC, in this universe, is a local print-digital paper in a midsized market that was dying before being saved by a "benevolent billionaire" type. After gaining its bearings shortly before COVID initially hit, it has taken the city and state by storm to become one of the most legitimate legacy papers still left in Pittsburgh and the state writ large. It used to be solely a standard, local government-focused paper, but gained national attention for doing some serious reporting during the pandemic/lockdown, social movements following the murder of George Floyd, and having their Black editor still editing and reporting while dying of COVID because of his belief in journalism. 

• (Author's note: to be clear, I know NOTHING about the media market on the East Coast outside of New York, let alone in Pennsylvania. And I refuse to learn. So much of my knowledge about the actual machine journalism happens against my will and I will never live over there so 🤷🏽‍♀️. What I can tell you is that, while it's not especially common per say, I do intend to inject a lot of realism with the whole "formerly dying paper in a midsized market that has gained a new life bc of a benevolent benefactor." I've worked at one (briefly briefly); these are their stories dun dun lol.)

WHAT'S THE DRAMA? (Or, I accidentally write a treatise lol) Part of the turmoil for Robby here is that he's being pressured to expand this paper and it's media goals while disillusioned by 1) the state of journalism/democracy, 2) the public's treatment of journalism and journalists (especially through the contentious times of ALWAYS AND FOREVER, but especially 2020-2026), 3) the death of Adamson (which, while he would not have treated him directly since he's not a doctor, he would have watched and reported on as someone who was trying to do accountability reporting at that the time), 4) the yo-yoing of his ambitions as a reporter over his career here that have been SHOCKED TO HELL by PTMC's newfound celebrity and stability, and 5) the pace demanded of him while he is utterly and THOROUGHLY burnt out. 

Congruent with how he is canonically in The Pitt, this Robby will be like many journalists: tired, burnt out, deeply skeptical and resentful of systemic injustice, and still (for some reason even he can't name) wanting and willing to show up for audiences for the sake of truth and accountability. He is so overtly aware of the deep importance of what he does to anyone he does "touch" immediately (so someone who actually reads the paper or is covered and helped because of coverage, rather than a patient), but also ultimately of his very limited impact (in da Pitt, this was often patients who don't come in or heed medical advice due to systemic factors; here, it's how few people interact with or trust journalism at all due to literacy/trust crises, and how regressive contemporary politics is rn). Other characters will face similar and different systemic struggles along the way.

Part of Robby's problem, too, is that he struggles with the new "pace" of journalism, both literally and socially. He's a print writer who was brought into the digital revolution unwillingly. Further, he was brought up and thrived under the old Rule of Law in journalism (i.e. the objectivity boys club). He's always had a tender heart that got stomped on by previous editors, and the pace and culture of journalism burnt him out faster than he could replace that energy. In journalism, your institutional legitimacy is everything—or so Robby thinks. (It doesn't help that Adamson probably helped coach him into some of those beliefs.)

He's not a bigot, obvs; I imagine it to be largely subconscious, and HC him here similar to how he is in the show, which is why reporters like Samira and McKay who are much more openly advocacy-/identity-based threaten him so deeply and evoke such toxic reactions. They represent the kind of care and commitment that got burned out of him by this career that doesn't feel like it loves him back. (If anything, it makes him madder that they have even less of reason to show up — bc mainstream journalism is historically much worse to women and POC — but they do anyway and have improved local trust in PTMC substantially.)  

Here's how I see our gang shaking out in a newsroom; let's start with the original crew:

Robby is still settling into his role as Editor-in-Chief (EIC). He took over after Adamson (who had just been starting to groom him to takeover as an internal hire) died. I imagine he started as many young white dude reporters do: he wanted to get into it for sports or politics, did reasonably well in student media in college, left from there to do state government and elections reporting. Then I imagine him getting knocked into some kind of frontline. I vote this was at Adamason's hand at another, bigger paper. Adamson saw how talented Robby was and how much he cared, and how much he was being wasted not being challenged to more in-depth and personal reporting. And when old school reporters see this, they can have a tendency to just... YOINK.

• So I imagine our boy was thrown into some deep shit, like a fucked up Erin Brockovich-type environmental story, or abuse, or violent riot, or something where he had to uncovering something really sick at the heart of it. He still struggles with it, having not really been prepared for the kind of reporting he did. It can be a shock to go from more stenographic reporting to something like that where you get down and close with people directly impacted. Plus the general workflow of journalism is generally draining. I imagine him in this position for a few years, seeing uniquely horrible shit and just hasn’t gotten over it + won’t open up and was sort of spiralling. Every story sort of eeks out that kind of trauma before the edits.
• Adamson was just starting to catch it as Robby's direct editor, which is why he took Robby with him when he moved papers to PTMC in 2018/2019—he would be EIC, and Robby would get to take a certain kind of load off as the managing editor (not directly involved in writing/reporting, but in workflow and assignment hand-outs occasionally). There was a plan in place in that that Adamson would groom Robby to take over in five-ish years when he went to retire—like maybe he had written it into his contract? (which you can't do but let's finesse and vibe guys). But, maybe just as they start to get their bearings and Robby feels like he can rest (which was also a lie) it's suddenly March of 2020.  Adamson gets COVID in like... late 2020/early 2021 probably while on the job and quickly nosedives. He reports and works as long as he can; I vote Robby is the only one from the office he takes calls with; Robby ghost writes some stuff for Adamson when he can't breathe or see. Robby listens to the man's lungs fill up and even hears him code once. Then he dies. 
• Robby has stopped writing at all. He's taken over the newsroom, and his trauma has gotten harder to manage. Robby took calls with Adamson while he was in the hospital dying so they could edit this stupid fucking paper? Now he's tired and haunted and feels he has nothing to give anymore. 

Jack is the managing editor and is a photojournalist! When Robby moved up, he moved up from below him as the former photo editor. (A paper as small as this could or could not have a specific photo editor, but I’m just going to make it Jack anyway.) I imagine that he was formerly embedded in Iraq or Afghanistan during the invasion after 9/11 who has a bit of a chip on his shoulder after realizing how un-'Nam/pro-propaganda he was being used for while there the whole thing was. He was always a bit of a radical, dabbled more in literary journalism, edging into Hunter S. Thomson territory in his writing. Has reported on full riots and uprisings in foreign countries. Maybe cut his teeth on a riot and then pulled back after winning a Pulitzer or something idk. 

• And important but dumb HC for Jack here is that he got his start and spent most of his early career at a Black Press. This is very important to me. Jack understands traditional journalism demands; he was a college dropout who got his associates in photography or something at a community college, but made money through freelancing. He learned what the institution expected through shadowing, quick internships, and more freelancing. He just found that he didn't care and fucking hated institutions. So he spent like 5+ years working committedly for a Black press outlet which may or may not have spun off to a more radical outlet. But he had bills to pay and maybe got poached, or the outlet shuttered and the editor hooked him up with a job during the invasion — perhaps, even, to follow Black and brown soldiers. I vote this is still related to how he loses his leg. 
• Among the shit he saw there and how he understands that conflict from having been physically there, part of the chip he has with journalism comes from how he got treated and how he watched stories and journalists get treated while working at a Black press vs. working at a more mainstream press. This is why he is drawn to reporters doing more radical work (esp Samira!!) and why he goes to the mat for them so hard and thinks they're so brilliant.
• idk why but also dyslexic Jack. Something about this... calls to me. And this feels like something that could be at work here important to his many arcs as a man potentially in love with the smartest and loneliest girl in the world who is obsessed with data.  

Samira is a health equity data reporting fellow. Similar to canon, she is often maligned, put down, or put under a microscope by Robby, who is full-steam ahead on objectivity and distance and wanting dailies. It's a little bit more hidden under playful ribbing since no one's life is on the line but... like only just. The data reporting desk is new and small (it literally could be just her for right now that isn't unheard of), and while the work would likely be institutionally recognized and objectively important, it likely wouldn't draw a ton of clicks (not without a great data viz and socials team to make it more relatable which I'll come back to in a sec), which is what Robby uses as an excuse to ride Samira's dick so hard lol. She doesn't totally miss deadlines, but she pushes them a lot, partially because she spends as much time filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests as she does interviewing and sitting with sources. This isn't totally unheard of (more on that later) but it rubs Robby the wrong way. The human element is good, but just because this story about lead poisoning makes you sad and think of your father who died of very aggressive metals-linked Leukemia doesn't mean you can sit in this woman's house for three hours to talk. I vote she was one of Adamson's last recruits straight out of J-school before he died, so Robby could groom her to be the next him, which he also resents. 

• I don't mean to characterize her solely based on the two old white men around her lol I'm just So Mad about last week's episode and I love her so much. More character is incoming, I'm just in a Zone rn. Much of it will be specific to being a WOC in journalism and how isolating it can be when trying to form relationships with anyone with a different job, trust. + I KNOW I'm doing to touch on her being the pinnacle of someone full of love and care for communities vs. the machine of journalism/content mill that will happily chomp your life away if you let it, and her learning that she needs to not let it.
• She's fresh out of grad school. She studied Journalism and [x — probably an ethnic studies or public health double major??] in undergrad at a PWI and went to a more diverse state school for grad school because she felt like there was more she was supposed to learn and wanted to learn it out of the field to mitigate harm... Only to feel stifled by the constraints of upper academia and the publishing grind without a clear connection to changing JOURNALISM directly, + realize that she needs to make stuff and make mistakes in order to really improve as a storyteller.
  • (First person to call this a self-insert goes to jail actually smh)
• I like the idea of her being a Fellow, rather than a direct employee of the newsroom to give her some status and agency to float and threaten Robby with as a concept of like "I'm here to make things better and I can be gone soon" but also to add pressure to her of like "I would like to be hired after this to work here but you make that impossible" and so a lot of panic being leveled on her as someone facing early career instability and a perpetual ax over your head no matter what you do. 
• She doubles as the nights editor on a volunteer basis!
• Jack is Managing Editor and more directly responsible for her, and so often lets her do her thing and takes heat from Robby because her work is good, helps with their engagement, and helps with their trust numbers. 

Langdon is cops and courts editor > investigations editor or reporter. He was on the crime/"cops and courts" beat for years and later shoe'd in as a desk editor maybe? But he is transitioning to be a senior reporter or editor on the new, slower or more predictable desk (adjacent to Samira's position?) following his brief stint in rehab related to drug addiction and mental health. Leaning towards investigations because you can do investigations work from a desk if you have a team, technically, and Robby is trying to hide this man.  The scandalous thing is that, yes, he did work while high. But more pressing: he found connects through the work he did as a reporter, which is a huge ding to local credibility/reputation. He also had a similar blow up/breakdown ft. him trying to systematically discredit Santos (publicly or internally idk) while she was a newsroom intern. Similar to canon, he should have been more professionally reprimanded and PTMC should have been more public with the scandal. Instead, it largely got swept under the rug, which adds to the tension that any day, someone could recognize Frank and come forward.

• Some facets of his addiction are where I'm leaning into the fictional nature of this piece—though it's not, like, out of the realm of possibility. Journalists are at an elevated risk for substance abuse. The "normalized type" is alcoholism, which you've likely seen in film and TV; this is a "myth" that is very much founded in truth. There are a lot of reasons for it, including situations journalists find themselves in, the culture at large, and also (chiefly!!) the trauma journalists bear witness to and experience, something I imagine would be heightened in a cops and courts reporter. I imagine Langdon to have seen. and heard. some. shit. Further, local crime/cops-and-courts beat reporters often rely on a more genial relationship with the police; I imagine between the "we are tough ol boys" club there + salient, visceral details of gruesome acts PLUS the "we are tough ol boys" club of journalism he would have found perpetuated under Robby's wing, it would have been a lot of exposure with very little cushioning and emotional/mental support. 
• I also imagine it is still physical-trauma related. He still could have been driven to the depths of his addiction by recovering from his back injury so he could continue functioning and doing his job. Like, as someone who does suffer from chronic back pain herself, I can tell you many popular aspects of journalism (longtime sitting at a desk in cheap/broken chairs, sitting in city council meetings where it is frowned upon to move if you don't have a camera, sitting through interviews, having a camera and kit to carry around, stress and sleeplessness, lack of breaks or rest times, standing at meetings or walking through protests, etc.) make it hard if you have that disability, and can make the disability so much worse. + your face and affect is fair game; if you aren't a certain degree of affable or charming down to your eyebrows, it can impact how you connect with sources. Not always, but I imagine Frank "piercing blue eyes, chin dimple, and slut strand" Langdon has been reliant on his physical charm on more than one occasion, which is a style easily cramped when caught in a perpetual wince of pain. (like, I agree with the interpretation that Frank Langdon is New To Being Attractive, but you learn a lot about how you appear to people as a reporter, and you play off of those strengths/weaknesses.)
• I vote His addiction was still discovered by Santos who shadowed him for her first shift or two (or he was going to be her newsroom mentor, which is common with an internship) and realized by a short string of events (ex. he has multiple phones besides his personal and professional phone, it was too hard to find the real contacts for certain sources who were known to be substance users or dealers, etc.)
• Hilarious to me if Robby simply refuses to give him the title of editor, even though like... he's mid-career and is the most senior one on the desk. Or maybe just declares that the desk has no editor and makes Jack run it more directly because he is avoidant and messy. 

McKay does… hm... local gov't/politics? I was stuck on where to put her but actually I think she could do really good work doing local gov't/politics, but specifically in how she humanizing this work that could otherwise be very stenographic of "x bill is doing this". She's great at cutting through the bullshit and identifying things like "here's why activists say bill H criminalizes homelessness"). I imagine she concentrates on things like addiction, homelessness, and women's issues; I could see her being called out by Collins or Samira for overly favoring white women in her reporting! so we can have growth moments! A big growth moment I could see is her outwardly being on the fence about objectivity when it comes to some people writing about some issues, and it being pointed out that she's drawn to issues and does good critical work on issues informed by her own experiences and she's like "oh ya duh" and just changes her mind. Love empathy-well McKay!

The Big Named Nurses are copy-editors! This will probably have to change lol. In reality, a paper of this size would probably not have oodles of copy editors. I definitely see Dana as head copy editor, and then Jesse, Mateo, Princess, and Perlah also being on the copy editing desk. Alternatively, I could see Princess and Perlah specifically securing their cheques as polyglots/experts and translators, both in the field but also in putting out multiple editions of important articles and doing outreach to immigrant/multilingual communities in the city, which would put PTMC a bit ahead of other papers who likely wouldn't have the time and/or resources to do that. 

CALEB AND KIARA ARE IN HR!!!!! Somebody's gotta do it lol. 

Now, onto the Pittlings!! One massive headcannon I have for them all is that they introduce updated style/coverage guides to the newsroom lol bc I believe shit on paper would be old and busted and you may quote me on that. I think another thing too is that the Pittlings would advocate being a lot more fluid about their coverage. Like, okay, my X boring ass beat (which new reporters typically get saddled with) is covered for the week; let me go write about bugs!!  

Trinity is the new, ambitious cops and courts reporter who has more of a justice/accountability mindset. Robby approves of her work generally, but also pushes her because she seems like she’s crusading and it gives her a blind spot. Like, for the first month, she tends to skirt around sourcing cops as much as possible. She refuses to take part in shitty breaking news stories about petty crimes and shootings (there is data about why this is a good thing to do btw!!) and instead produces some kind of humanizing profile. I vote that after Robby gave her an assignment to do a quick write up of someone shot by the police or someone who may have otherwise just been a write off subject because they were problematic, she instead did a humanizing write up and almost obituary of them instead, which she knows is going to get her ass handed to her by Robby but is what gets her the comment from Abbot about "that was crazy never do it again ... good fucking job" or whatever he says. 

• Similarly I will not base this character on this one fuckass man I am just angry and love her and am on a roll narratively from last week's episode. 
• She moved from her intern position to her staff position. Robby tried to make it clear that she wasn't offered the job to keep her quiet, though she did take the job when it was offered and kept quiet (partly because of Robby's approval, partly because of job insecurity in journalism), which made her feel isolated. I vote she and Robby are the only ones who really know the truth of what happened and why with Frank so that's hard, and it's hard for her when Frank comes back after rehab. He spends a day trying to give her tips and ease her into the position (not especially common but not unheard of - reporters tend to leave outlets completely and will sometimes leave behind a write up or some main contacts, from what I've seen) before she pushes him off and they have a confrontation. 
• She still finds out about Whitaker's housing/resource insecurity and takes him in!! Early career journos can stick together like no other community I've seen before! Every other person is broke and bustling just like you and you can end up so funneled into your job and career bc of time and pacing constraints you can get close quickly. 
• I vote she does some work with archiving in her spare time as a self-soothing method. Sometimes Dennis joins her, but usually she likes to be in the quiet room alone with all that history. 

Mel comes on as an environment reporter who dabbles in special issues on disability and sexuality. I don't have much more to say about her at this moment, but more is coming.

• Again, I will not solely define her character based on this one man, I'm just On A Roll and I didn't flesh out the pittlings. yet. I do have something about her being passionate about environmental issues. Environmental reporters have gained more and more legitimacy, but they are known for being... idk how to describe it best. Mocked? Delegitimized? or just generally kind of misunderstood and made smaller. Like "oh yeah? go report on twees and wittle kitties huh?" when it's like... climate change, contaminated water, metals poisoning, air pollution, etc. and very important legitimate work!!!!!! And Mel being passionate about it and so deeply humanizing of this work and making sure to center people in it!! and deeply affected and angry and sad about the injustice she witnesses!!
  • Which not to bring it back to a man lol but would help draw a sharp contrast to Michael "Don't ever apologize for feeling something for your communities" Robinavitch responding to her vs. Michael "Slo-mo/panic attack because of your mommy issues/I don't want to liability" RobinoBITCH responding to Samira's care for her communities and injustices she deals with. 
• I still envision her getting close with Frank bc of methodology; maybe Frank's first assignment is do to a piece on disability, and he comes out maligning it a little (as a trauma response! but he's still wrong for that) or just using outdated lingo (no slurs, jfc, but just something that says I AM NOT USED TO THIS AND AM UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THINGS I DON'T KNOW) or ooooooooo maybe gets set up to interview someone with a developmental disability and sort of panics about it or flops in the office and Mel swoops in and is like "have u tried this" and it WORKS and he looks at her like she is the SUN and they do a DOUBLE BYLINE TOGETHER for the story and he dives DEEP into disability issues—esp because he has one!!
  • Journalism romance for a second, walk with me >>>> journalists can be very cagey about sharing bylines. There's a lot of nerdy reasons for this I will get into in the actual fic, but know Frank is 1000000% one of those reporters, or has been historically. What's more, whatever she does to help him with that story, in the grand scheme of things, would only warrant a contributing line, which is just a blurb or a sentence or two, typically at the bottom of a story, crediting a reporter/s for helping put something together. Something like "Additional reporting was done by X at Y outlet" or "Contributing credits: x, y, z." A sort of "step down" from the byline in that it is vaguer, you don't tend to use it in your portfolio or resume, and it doesn't say much about what you did or how. Bylines are more involved reporting and actual writing, typically, but make it hard for a reporter to include in their portfolio/resume unless it's a huge project or lines were clearly drawn. Anyway, Mel assumes (rightfully) that her name would just be a contributing credit — goes to advocate for herself in fact (because she is new to this newsroom but she deserves credit for her work, dammit!) but Frank is like "oh no way your name went right up there next to mine" and she's like 👁️👄👁️ and he's like "I couldn't have done this story without you you were amazing out there we wouldn't have gotten this source and I would have been an asshole and also I'm ready and willing to have your babies and you are a brilliant reporter so.... yeah you have the double byline." which opens a flood of trust between the two for her to have someone to go to with concerns and not worry he's going to poach her ideas or think any particular thing about her. 

Javadi is a features reporter who does "surge" reporting, which is traditionally just reporting on viral or trendy news — kind of like a repackaged breaking news reporter. I vote she ends up shining in an udience engagement role on socials, which boosts PTMC's popularity in a way non-Pittlings struggling to understand bc they are chronically offline lol until the clicks start coming in and revenue goes through the roof. I could see Robby's newsroom neglecting and maligning features work a little, thinking it's just homes and gardens and cute shit. Robby specifically only begrudgingly accepts the power of making long and good reporting accessible online and in shorts, but Javadi is a fucking whiz at it in a way he quickly comes to respect. 

• I vote Javadi is still nepo baby in media. I've never met one lol but I have met approximations so I can only imagine. What I figure is her parents are either higher ups at this paper in the comms/advertising space, or they are local radio/broadcast legends and think her social media game is the thing she can "do better than" but she's so passionate and good at her job!! and does such good work!! I want this to be demonstrable in some way, like people adhere to a local recall or boycott and they avoid getting sick/crossing the picket line bc they listen to her insta reels summary of a story Samira did that would have been buried otherwise. 
• I have to make you suffer my journo soapbox for a min: Though I am spiritually decrepit and generally hate the act of posting my own shit on instagram, I have made respect for the people in newsrooms who do!!! Audience/Engagement editors can be some of the coolest, funniest, smartest people you will ever meet!! And their work can be very important!! You cannot expect audiences to come back to you — you have to meet them where they're at!!!!! Fuck you Aaron Sorkin!!!!! End of rant. 
• I do imagine her making a mistake, which gets amplified because of her profile, akin to the labs incident. Like, I imagine she gets a series story's details wrong or overly criminalizes something or idk idk. It's less like critical than the mistake she made with the labs in the show, but something that warrants the "you fucked up nepo baby" thing — which then teaches her the value of traditional, reparative work. 

Dennis would also be a features reporter or a photographer, I think. If he's on features, I would want him to do either gen assignment (with his own personal focus on religion and LGBTQ+ communities) or music!!! I'm actually very passionate about queertrans Dennis doing music reporting and being very good at it in his own right because he has rich knowledge of old music, but also because everyone in the music scene wants to sleep with him lmao. But honestly, I could see him being a photog!! He's got a thing about noticing something. If I want to swing to Huckleabbot or Hucklerabbot, this would be a good in + even if I just want to stick with Hucklerobby, 1) I could make Robby have a past in photojourn, 2) he likes that it reminds him of Abbot at first and then sees how Dennis is his own kind of photog, 3) Dennis just does cool work and ends up in interesting situations because he forms relationships of his own kind, etc. or 4) ???

• Dennis is probably going to be my rep of the economic instability of emerging journos. I imagine him as a freelancer who is offered an internship because of a sick rural-urban divide photo story he did. But the internship doesn't pay shit and he's housing insecure. I imagine once he has a guaranteed job at the office, he'd have a much easier time hiding it and sleeping there. Journo offices commonly have couches or special interview rooms I imagine him squatting in or shifting around in for a period of time. He could even have run of a whole section or area that was formerly dedicated to a whole photojournalism team but is now just like him and Abbot (and maybe one or two other people? unclear) and so he could sleep at his desk or under it and it would be hard to tell. He could volunteering for nights ... options are endless. 
• There's often food in and around journo offices too, just like any other. Many journalists still eat like they're little ratty college kids, so he'd likely be scavenging off snacks and old/expired shit unfortunately, but offices often order pizza for late nights and special coverage 
• He similarly gets found out by Santos ... somehow. I like it being coverage related. Like if he accompanies Trinity to an encampment and someone recognizes Dennis, or he's too familiar with the shelter system, or something. I don't think it would be incriminating enough to find him sleeping in the office — people do that sometimes or semi-regularly if they have an unhealthy relationship to their job. But Trinity is the smartest girl in the world so she would crack the case and offer him her spare room and it's great.  

Other staff I have yet to figure out/decide on: Gloria, Collins, Night Crew (ex. Ellis, Shen, etc.), Ahmad, other departments (ex. Garcia, Shark, etc.), S2 newbies - Emma, Joy, and Evil Whitaker, others probably; I know I didn't write about Al-Hashimi but this woman would be a tech/economy reporter hands DOWN, but I honestly see her doing some kind of media audit or being a journalism scholar/PhD/Researcher who comes in to observe and do a report for a donor or the billionaire and observes the toxic habits of the newsrooms 👀. 

Other beats I need to cover: EDUCATION huge oversight on my part, photography, transport/infrastructure, sports, health, more features, business/economy 

^^ there's something cooking there... just wait