The Story review – thrilling drama of race, truth and the pursuit of headlines

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian

Letitia Wright plays the ambitious young reporter seduced into cutting corners with contentious reporting in a brilliantly kinetic production

Tracey Scott Wilson’s play follows in the fine tradition of the fast-paced newsroom drama, beginning with the cold-blooded murder of a white schoolteacher by an unknown Black assailant as his pregnant wife watches. Cue moral panic, rolling news and the entry of a fiery young journalist determined to solve the case.

That is where the Watergate-style investigative blueprint warps because Yvonne (Letitia Wright, of Black Panther fame) is no simple hero in pursuit of truth. She is an ambitious Black woman, assigned to an enclave of a newspaper reserved for Black journalists. Her imperious editor, Pat (Lorraine Toussaint) is after positive news stories on the Black community while her white editor boyfriend, Jeff (Wilf Scolding) promises her a bigger gig if she proves herself worthy.

Neither Yvonne nor the press come out of it with their integrity intact: she lies and invents (her character is based on Janet Cooke, a journalist for the Washington Post discredited for making up a Pulitzer prize-winning story in 1981), while the media is shown to be motivated by editorialising and reshaping the facts to suit their needs.

The story beneath The Story is one of media spin and fake news caught in the crosshairs of racial politics. Yvonne and Pat represent opposite ends of the same spectrum: the former wants to be seen as a “reporter rather than a Black reporter” while Pat speaks of the lack of diversity in the newsroom and the historical struggle to be represented authentically.

The Guardian explains why the themes are opposite of today.

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