Since the time of Richard Nixon, there has been a strange lack of

Host: The newsroom was nearly silent now.
The monitors still glowed — endless footage looping in quiet repetition: a disgraced senator leaving the courthouse, microphones lunging like vultures; anchors repeating the same phrases of shock, redemption, downfall. The hum of fluorescent lights was the only heartbeat left.

Stacks of old newspapers lay scattered across the long table — headlines from decades apart, yet eerily alike. “Scandal,” “Lie,” “Betrayal,” “Resignation.” The fonts changed, but the story never did.

Jack stood by the window, his reflection fractured in the glass — a man watching two worlds: one outside, real and raw; one inside, filtered through the flicker of screens. Jeeny sat at the table, her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee gone cold, eyes scanning the headline one more time like she was searching for something that wasn’t printed there.

Jeeny: “Mimi Kennedy once said, ‘Since the time of Richard Nixon, there has been a strange lack of will in the media to identify the real cause for Americans’ anger at politicians who fall, publicly and spectacularly.’”

Jack: half-smiling, half-tired “Yeah. The circus never left town. It just changed anchors.”

Jeeny: “She’s right though. Every scandal becomes performance art now. We don’t analyze the fall — we sell tickets to it.”

Host: Outside, a sirens wailed faintly in the distance. The glow of red and blue lights briefly illuminated the walls of the newsroom — a surreal echo of breaking news playing live and real at the same time.

Jack: “And yet, every time, people act surprised. Like they haven’t seen this show before.”

Jeeny: “That’s the point. Surprise is profitable. Outrage has a short shelf life, so they keep us cycling — scandal to scandal, sinner to savior to sinner again.”

Jack: “So the anger’s not about corruption anymore. It’s about betrayal of illusion.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. People aren’t mad their politicians are corrupt. They’re mad the performance cracked.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice carried the quiet precision of someone who’d thought this through too many times. She leaned forward, her elbows on the table, her eyes catching the dull reflection of a TV headline: “ANOTHER PUBLIC FALL FROM GRACE.”

Jeeny: “Kennedy saw it. After Nixon, the country didn’t just lose faith in leadership — it lost faith in innocence. The media should have examined that grief, that national fracture. But instead, they turned it into entertainment.”

Jack: “And America fell in love with its own outrage.”

Jeeny: softly “Because outrage is easier than introspection.”

Host: The lights flickered above them. A producer passed through, gathering notes, not daring to interrupt. The city beyond the glass shimmered with late-night advertisements — every billboard glowing with confidence, every window hiding a little despair.

Jack: “You know what’s funny? Nixon would have loved this era. He’d be trending on Twitter daily. He’d feed on the spectacle.”

Jeeny: “He was the prototype, wasn’t he? The original performance politician — paranoid, brilliant, human in the worst ways. And we turned him into a mirror. Every scandal since has been a rerun of that revelation.”

Jack: “The revelation that power’s always built on a lie?”

Jeeny: “No — the revelation that we like being lied to, as long as the lie flatters us.”

Host: A moment of silence followed, broken only by the buzz of screens cycling through muted news clips. On one, a young congressman apologized for “mistakes in judgment.” On another, commentators dissected his tone, his body language, his brand of contrition.

Jack: “We analyze redemption like it’s data. Not whether they change, but whether they cry on cue.”

Jeeny: “And the real question — why we crave these public executions — never gets asked.”

Jack: “Because it’s not journalism anymore. It’s exorcism. We purge them to feel clean again.”

Jeeny: quietly “But we never are. That’s why we keep needing more.”

Host: Jack turned from the window, his face sharp in the monitor’s pale light.

Jack: “So Kennedy’s right. The media doesn’t want to find the root of our anger. Because they’d have to admit it’s not about them — it’s about us.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Our need for purity. Our addiction to hypocrisy. We demand perfection from people we already suspect are human.”

Jack: grinning bitterly “America’s favorite genre: moral outrage. Season fifty, still in syndication.”

Jeeny: “Because every fall reaffirms our innocence. We point and say, ‘See, I’m not like them.’ But deep down, we know we are.”

Host: The wind rattled the window slightly, the city outside whispering through the glass. Jeeny looked down at the newspaper spread before her — images of politicians shaking hands, smiling for cameras, smiling for survival.

Jeeny: “You know what’s worse? We don’t want truth. We want closure. And the media gives it to us — edited, packaged, consumable.”

Jack: “Closure’s the most dangerous lie. It lets us stop thinking.”

Jeeny: “That’s why it sells.”

Host: The clock on the wall ticked softly, its sound crisp in the still air.

Jack: “When she says there’s a lack of will to identify the real cause, she’s talking about cowardice. The kind that hides behind ratings and ad revenue.”

Jeeny: “And fear. Because if the media really asked why Americans are angry, they’d have to admit how complicit they are in the creation of that anger.”

Jack: quietly “Because fear keeps the lights on.”

Jeeny: “And guilt drives the clicks.”

Host: The monitors shifted again — another headline, another scandal. A fresh face falling from grace. The news cycle devouring itself in real time.

Jeeny: “You ever think about what Nixon would say if he saw this now?”

Jack: smiling ruefully “He’d probably say, ‘I told you so.’ And he’d be right.”

Jeeny: “Because we never fixed the wound. We just televised it.”

Host: The room dimmed further. Jeeny stood, stretching, her shadow stretching long across the flickering screens.

Jeeny: “The media doesn’t investigate corruption anymore, Jack. It commodifies it. Turns shame into content, redemption into brand strategy.”

Jack: “And outrage into currency.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And that’s why the real cause of the anger stays hidden — because truth doesn’t trend.”

Host: She gathered her notebook, closing it softly, her expression both weary and defiant. Jack remained seated, his eyes lingering on the wall of headlines — decades of repetition compressed into one glowing mosaic.

Jack: after a pause “You think there’s a cure?”

Jeeny: “Only if we start wanting truth more than entertainment.”

Jack: “That’s a hard sell in a country addicted to spectacle.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe it starts with silence — with learning to watch without needing to judge.”

Host: The screens continued to flicker, cycling endlessly. Outside, the storm that had threatened all night finally broke — rain slashing across the windows, washing the glass clean for a moment before new dirt gathered again.

And in that fleeting clarity, Mimi Kennedy’s words came alive — not as cynicism, but as revelation:

That the anger we project
is not about the fall of the powerful,
but about our own need to believe in purity;
that the media, in feeding our outrage,
only mirrors our refusal to confront
the uncomfortable truth —

that what enrages us in others
is the corruption we recognize
in ourselves.