Good News is No News

Ambrose Petersen was buttoning up his shirt in anticipation of another day at City Hall. He had been working at his new job as the Mayor's Communications Director for a little over four months. It was a good job. Roger Doofenshmirtz was a good man, and a good boss. Ambrose had a good wife, a good little daughter, and a good little dog, and he had a new son on the way who would doubtless be good as well. He was still angling for a nice house in the nice neighborhood of Meadowcrest, but for now he had a perfectly good townhouse apartment. He lived in the good city of Danville where every day was a good day, and he would have been the first to admit, he was a lucky fellow with a very good life.

Maybe that was part of the problem.

Danville – heck, the entire Tri-State Area – had simply become too good for its own good.

Today was Monday. Yesterday had been a horrible day for Ambrose. He had witnessed a death that hurt him more deeply than he could have imagined. The Daily Danville, the city's own newspaper, had published its final edition on Sunday and was now relegated to obsolesence, alongside the 8-track tape and the typewriter. The demise of the paper had not been a surprise. Ever since the last corporate buyout at the start of this year, the Daily Danville had become less and less about journalism and more about fluffy human interest stories: new tigers at the zoo or new fossils at the museum, how many cupcakes the Fireside Girls had sold or how many games the Danville U basketball team had won. There were still national news items picked up from a syndicate, and the last surviving specimens of comics and classified ads. But it had become more and more clear that the paper was a mere shadow of its once-robust self, and its will to survive was ebbing away. And now, on Monday morning, the front stoop was bare and the Daily Danville, where Ambrose Petersen of Minneapolis, Minnesota and the Danville University Journalism Program had begun his career, was no more.

Candace had been sympathetic, but it wasn't the same for her, and whatever sadness she felt was mostly nostalgia for her childhood breafkast table, where her parents swapped sections of the paper while she read the comics over a bowl of sugary cereal. "Honey, it's the twenty-first century," she had explained gently, like a parent rationalizing why great-grandpa was In a Better Place. Ambrose knew it was a valid point. "News" these days was driven more and more by blogs and social media. Clark Kent was a relic.

He was tucking a necktie under his collar when Candace's voice sounded from downstairs. "Honey, hurry up! You're going to be on Channel 9!"

"Coming," he called back, sorting out the tie.

"They said right after the break," she warned.

"On the way." He stayed where he was, looping and knotting and straightening his neckwear. He did find it amusing, the way Candace now insisted on watching the Channel 9 Breakfast Show instead of WJOP's Wake Up. Danville, where she'd been an anchor until starting her maternity leave a week ago. She had made some silly excuse about Channel 9 doing more traffic breaks or something, but he knew it was really about Candace's annoyance that WJOP had given her spot at the anchor desk to Wendy the Weather Girl. Frankly, Ambrose didn't care what channel she watched. The local television news was no more hard-hitting than the paper had been. Then again, what did the smiling TV faces have to report on anyway? The Tri-State Area was hardly a hotbed of scandal or strife. Now and then, someone might claim to have seen something weird, but Candace said Danvillians had seen so much weirdness over the years, no one paid those reports much attention. Her favorite retort to any such tale was, "You think that's weird, you should have lived here when my brothers were kids." Even the sporadic attempts by the Mayor's brother to cause mischief always somehow resolved themselves with no real harm done. Life in Danville was just too good.

"Honeyyyyyy…" Candace yelled.

"Right here, Candy Cane," he came downstairs into the living room as the grinning Breakfast Show Crew introduced their next story. The Tri-State Humane Society was getting ready for their annual Find a Furry Friend event and Ambrose had accompanied the Mayor to the shelter on Saturday to promote pet adoptions. Channel 9 had packaged a nice story out of it, and Ambrose was proud of what he'd been part of. There were clips of Mayor Doofenshmirtz's speech, which Ambrose had written, and lots of footage of the Mayor smothered in kittens. On anyone else, it would have looked clumsy and staged, but Roger Doofenshmirtz was such an enthusiastic Cat Person, it was clear he was having the time of his life with his new feline friends. Somewhere in the midst of the report, Amanda, who was watching with them, squealed, "Look! Daddy!" and there was a shot of Ambrose petting a big, tail-wagging dog while talking with a shelter volunteer. Now he found himself smiling as he watched the footage. That had been a good day.

Danville was a good place, run by a good man who had given him a good job that allowed him to take care of his good family. Yeah, thought Ambrose, watching the video of Roger Doofenshmirtz placing a kitten in the hands of a delighted young adoptive pet parent, life here was good. Ambrose Petersen really was a lucky fellow with a very good life.

And there was nothing bad about that.

The End

A/N – Well, the end of the first story. Stay tuned; this was just setting the stage.