Press

Episode 1

Death Knock

58 mins

At The Herald, a left-leaning broadsheet struggling to adapt to the age of digital news, Deputy News Editor Holly Evans is tasked with giving Wendy Bolt, a controversial right-wing commentator and media personality, a tour of the office. Holly is itching to get back to a story lead she is following: the death of a young woman, Andrea Reed, following a hit and run by a police car. When she learns that the nearby corner shop has already given its CCTV footage of the accident to The Post, a thriving populist tabloid that occupies a building in the same square as the Herald, Holly approaches Editor Duncan Allen and asks for the tapes. Unfortunately, Duncan still remembers an uncomplimentary article Holly once wrote about him. At The Post, Oxford graduate Ed Washburn is given his first 'death knock', interviewing the parents of Shawn Kingsley, a footballer who has committed suicide. When details emerge about Kingsley's private life that prompt his distraught parents to withdraw the interview, Ed comes under pressure to run the story against their will. Duncan is delighted to be approached with compromising pictures of Carla Mason, a front-bench MP known for her feminist stance. The Herald is following the story from a more sympathetic angle, but Editor Amina Chaudury's reassurances to Mason that the splash will soon die down prove premature. Duncan is pleased with his day's work, but on leaving the office he is stopped by Worldwide News chief George Emmerson - his boss - who reminds him that he is employed to deliver news as well as entertainment. Meanwhile, Holly remains determined to continue investigating Andrea Reed's death.