by Golden Pen
Overall I liked this story and found it pleasantly stimulating. Here's the thing, though. You made the protagonist a journalism professor and newspaper editor and told the tale in the fist person.
A j-school professor would write much differently than you do. The story would be much tighter and far differently organized, there would be vivid description, there would be consistency in usage, punctuation and grammar. Making your first-person protagonist a professional writer underscores your own inexperience to the detriment of your story. It makes it that much harder to suspend disbelief. Could she not teach another subject? No one expects a math professor to be a polished writer. It would not be a contradiction.
Again, I liked the story.