Lou Grant

Lou's attempt to expose a pull-pushing doctor lands reporter Joe Rossi in jail. Not even Lou can keep police out of the city room when they come armed with the recent Supreme Court ruling that allows them to search for Rossi's notes. At the same time, managing editor Charlie Hume sets up an innovative page written by and for young people that takes an eye-opening approach to the news.

Lou has to find out why his friend and boss, Charlie Hume, behaves irrationally when the Tribune runs an expose of political torture.

When reporter Billie Newman investigates the murder of a young hooker, she finds that she must change many of her ideas about the works of prostitutes. Meanwhile, Lou's coverage of a congressman's campaign against pornography lands the Tribune in deep trouble.

Lou and Rossi stumble onto a big story but have trouble getting it together after they see an old-time mobster at a posh resort. At the same time, Animal provides a big surprise when he goes along with Lou to take pictures at the Tribune's annual tennis tourney.

A woman is killed and nobody cares except reporter Billie Newman, who finds that even Lou is reluctant to pursue the story of a "routine murder." At the same time, the city responds enthusiastically to the story of a plucky matron who successfully fights off jewel thieves.

Unable to face the fact that his mother is critically ill, Art Donovan puts a strain on the city room that leads Lou to give Billie an unusual assignment - death.

A young woman counselor tries to make Lou understand the new and frightening trend in schools where violence has become a way of life. In picking a Tribune winner at a ghetto school, Lou gets an education himself about unruly youngsters, drugs and weapons - and those who still manage to survive. The Reverend Jesse Jackson appears as himself in a scene set at a high school honor convocation, and his extemporaneous remarks are used in the show.

The vacationing Lou finds himself at odds with his old boss, the crusty owner of a rural newspaper, about breaking a story that could tear the town apart. While Lou and publisher Chip Murphy battle it out, back at the Tribune, Art Donovan sends Billie and Animal out on assignment - one that could be the biggest they've ever handled.

A newspaper expert is hired to give the Tribune a new look. The result: the Tribune's best reporters are sent on a story about sex, singles and computer dating.

Billie uncovers a baby black market scandal but has to pretend Rossi is her husband to get facts for her story, and Lou winds up as referee. Even Mrs. Pynchon gets involved because she has to okay putting up $10,000 in Tribune money to buy a baby.

Rossi uncovers conflicts of interest on the staff, including Lou, and writes a story that sets off fireworks in the city room. Mrs. Pynchon tells Rossi to keep an eye out for mistakes in the Tribune but doesn't realize just how far he'll go until he takes on a campaign by her pet charity.

Lou's little grandson is hard of hearing, but the boy's mother can't accept it. While Lou is absorbed by his family, Rossi gets in trouble over a construction company scandal.

Lou is stunned to learn of a high level cover-up of an arson ring and, while he's checking the report, Animal's apartment building is the next target of the firebugs. It takes diligent legwork by the staff to get a lead on the fire-for-profit operation, but then Lou faces the problems of collecting enough evidence for a story.

Animal's erratic behavior touches off a Tribune inquiry into the plight of the all-but-forgotten Vietnam veteran who is treated much differently from servicemen in other wars. Lou, in trying to help Animal and the likeable Sutton, discovers that years after Vietnam, too many veterans are still unemployed or otherwise under strain from their experience.

Looking for a place to invest a $5,000 windfall, Lou gets a shocking look at white collar crime when he uncovers a clever financial scheme run by a sharp con man. He learns there are shady characters only too willing to put his money in their pockets, but has trouble convincing at least one victim - Charlie Hume - of what's going on.

After Lou sees an Immigration Department sweep of his favorite Mexican restaurant, the Tribune uncovers a grim and unsettling picture of what's happening to illegal aliens. At the same time, Lou has to cope with a new addition to the city room staff - Mrs. Pynchon's spoiled niece - who turns out to be ill-equipped for the job of copy girl.

The city is thrown into panic when the Tribune's star columnist writes a column that Lou fears could incite a serial killer to strike again. The reporter who covered the so-called "Samaritan" slayings years before is assigned to draw up a profile that might lead to the madman, and the staff fans out to follow his clues.

A mother, obsessed with tracking the hit-and-run driver who killed her son, arouses Rossi's fighting instincts and leads to a human interest story with an unexpected payoff. Meanwhile, after Lou and Mrs. Pynchon have separate encounters with hostile citizens, Billie is assigned to find out if there's a story in the use of cars as weapons.

A helpless old lady in a wheelchair is dumped in a county office because of a bureaucratic wrangle, and this sets the staff onto a searing Tribune expose of shoddy nursing home practices. Billie gets a job at a nursing home for a shocking insider's report on care for the elderly, while Lou learns from a retired hat maker that, in too many cases, this country's old people are regarded as non-persons.

The city room hears that a radical group plans to kidnap a VIP at a publishers' convention attended by Lou and other Tribune executives. Lou, a reluctant delegate at the convention, fends off the aggressive job-hunting tactics of flamboyant newsman Jack Riley as Rossi and Billie try to get a lead on the kidnapping report.

In a news-packed day, Lou feels the pressure as he sets up coverage of a tunnel cave-in and a human fly climbing a skyscraper, knowing that a resentful Donovan has been offered a better paying job. The hard pressed Lou also has to answer questions of a Swedish tour group, cope with a familiar kook (Mr. Dreyfus) who brings news of outer space, and find an assignment for a youthful city room intern.

Could an individual build an atomic bomb? Lou gets a terrifying answer when a terrorist threatens to detonate a nuclear device and provides the Tribune with detailed plans as proof. Facing the terrorist's deadline in checking out the story, Rossi has another personal problem: he's been dating Hume's daughter and knows his boss doesn't like her to get interested in any reporter - especially Rossi.

A series of Skid Row stranglings turn out to have special meaning for Lou, who discovers his former doctor is now a bum, and for Rossi, who has his own reason for hating drunks. Lou is astonished to find that his once skilled surgeon is defiant about living on Skid Row, and Rossi for once tries to get out of working on a story.

Romance hits the Tribune, but not the hearts and flowers kid: Lou gets an unexpected offer from Susan, and Billie meets teenagers who have babies to escape from home. Rossi finds good reason to be cynical in the story of a rock singer being sued for community property by his former live-in girlfriend.