Billie is upset because her story, about a courageous black woman who is slain in her own apartment, is relegated to the back pages while Rossi's story, about an elderly white woman who fights off burglars, makes the front page.

Art Donovan's mother is dying, but he is having trouble accepting this as fact. His relations with everyone in the newsroom suffer as his mother gets worse, and his colleagues try to help him come to terms with the inevitable.

Lou, Charlie, and Donovan interview students from an inner city school for the purpose of awarding a college scholarship to a journalism major. While Charlie and Donovan recommend a straight-A student, Lou pushes for a student who kicked a drug habit and got tutoring to improve his grades. Rossi and Billie uncover disturbing trends of violence at the same inner city school.