Loading...
The trials of a former television station manager turned newspaper city editor, and his journalist staff.
1980
Charlie and Lou do some thorough investigating when Charlie's new tenant seems to be using his house for suspicious purposes.
When Rossi and Billie come upon the hot story of illegally exported medical supplies, Lou holds off on publication due to the lack of tenable facts. However, a visiting reporter disagrees with Lou and has no reservations about exposing the story.
When the Tribune is hit by a worker's strike, Lou sides with management but is sympathetic toward the union.
1978
Rossi is handed records which prove that a doctor is illegally prescribing drugs. When the story runs and it is suspected that the records may have been obtained by illegal means, Rossi is told to either reveal his source or go to jail.
When Mrs. Pynchon plays host to the wife of the leader of a controversial Latin American country known for its torturing practices, Charlie Hume is anything but inviting to her.
After a homicide occurs in the city, Billie finds out that the victim was a prostitute who worked at a "spa" business. While investigating, she strikes up an unlikely friendship with the victim's co-worker who does not seem to fit the stereotypical profile of a hooker.
Lou and Rossi visit a California resort in preparation for the Trib's annual tennis tournament. They are perplexed at the number of mob bosses they see at the resort, and begin to investigate.
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.
Lou visits his home town while on vacation and meets his old boss who now runs the town's newspaper. While there, an outbreak of an unknown cattle disease gets Lou's attention when it's suggested the disease could be transmitted to humans.
Lou clashes with the new media consultant who believes that the paper should do more trashy stories to cater to the younger crowds. One of those stories has Billie and Rossi investigating the "singles" scene by going out on dates through a computer service. While Rossi has trouble finding time with his date, Billie has trouble getting rid of her date.
Billie and Rossi pose as a married couple in order to uncover a black market baby selling operation.
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.
While investigating a string of fires in the same neighborhood, Lou and Billie find a connection linking a building owner and members of a fire department to arson.
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 $15,000 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.
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.
Streaming availability information not available
Ed Asner
Lou Grant
Robert Walden
Joe Rossi
Linda Kelsey
Billie Newman
Mason Adams
Charlie Hume
Jack Bannon
Art Donovan
Daryl Anderson
Dennis Price
Nancy Marchand
Margaret Pynchon
Allen Williams
Adam Wilson
Laurence Haddon
Paul Stolarsky
Hammer
1977
After landing the city editor job at the Los Angeles Tribune, Lou Grant's first major story is a sex scandal concerning the LAPD and underage girls. However, in order to get it published he must deal with a reporter who is reluctant to bring down the police, and Mrs. Pynchon, who has a difference of opinion with him.
Upset with a story about his brother, who was wrongfully shot by a store-owner during a robbery, a gunman demands a new story and holds the newspaper staff hostage until they comply.
1979
Lou is the only witness to a neighborhood murder and is mystified by the way the police handle the case, thereby discovering a touchy area of crime. At the same time, a fatal fire in a gay bar poses a tough question for Lou: should the newspaper publish the names of the victims, knowing people will be hurt by the story. Lou is also puzzled to see a uniformed cop working a homicide case and sends Rossi to find out why, with disturbing results.
1981
Kitty Larsen, a young woman on death row, picks Rossi to tell her story. Although hesitant at first, he soon begins to like her. But Lou has personal feelings against her because she killed a reporter from the Trib.
When Lou gets a tip from a friend who claims to know the whereabouts of a missing millionaire, members of the staff initially have doubts about following it and dismiss it as a hoax. The man begins to gain credibility when he is able to retrieve information that only the missing man would know.
Lou clashes with a woman who is the head of the woman's section of the newspaper over whose reporter should cover the alleged murder of a famous playwright in New Mexico.
While investigating a group of Nazis, Billie comes upon information that one of their leaders used to be Jewish.
When a staff member passes away, Lou does everything he can to comfort the widow, which causes her to depend more on him and fall in love with him. After a small earthquake hits, Rossi interviews a scientist who claims that his insects are predicting a more serious one in the upcoming days.
Surprised by the paper's lack of coverage on the shooting of a Hispanic woman by a gang, Lou allows Billie to go into the Hispanic community to write a story. While in the community, she meets the victim's son who is fueled with anger and seems headed down the wrong path.
Pressured to get the latest scoop at any cost, Lou ends up in hot water after running two of Rossi's exclusive stories which turn out to be false. So when Billie has information about a possible fake kidnapping, Lou is reluctant to run the story.
When Lou goes to a courthouse to look into a report of inappropriate behavior by a senior judge, he angers the judge by trying to leave in the middle of a trial and is put in jail. Upset by this treatment, he gets the newspaper staff to further investigate the judge's erratic behavior.
After Lou tells him that his stories are missing first-hand experience, Rossi checks into a mental institution as a patient under a made-up name to investigate reports of abuse. Lou clashes with a lawyer at the paper because he feels that censorship and fear of possible lawsuits are limiting what the paper can publish.
Billie uses a battered woman as a source for a story on spousal abuse but has trouble following through with it when the women's husband finds out. She later finds out that a co-worker has a problem with spousal abuse.
Staff members become nervous when a multi-millionaire with a penchant for ruining the credibility of newspapers makes an attempt to take over the Tribune.
Lou gets homesick with Christmas approaching. Billie does a story on a family that is homeless for the holidays and public donations begin to pour in. After Rossi improperly uses a quote, Lou punishes him by assigning him to a boring story that turns out to be a juicy story.
News breaks of an airplane carrying over 300 people that is unable to land. Members of the staff scour the list of passengers aboard and find out that Charlie's daughter is on that flight.
The paper faces a public backlash after Lou runs a story about an NCAA investigation into the possible recruiting violations by a popular local college football team.
When a man saves a judge's life and then flees the scene, the paper launches a campaign to find his identity. When they find him and write a story revealing that he has a criminal record, he blames the paper for hurting his business and ruining his engagement. Billie is upset at the lack of support for a halfway house that is on the verge of closing due to lack of funding.
The paper does a story on a senior citizen whose apartment, decorated with art that reflects his life's work, is in danger of being torn down.
Charlie is devastated when his son joins a cult.
Rossi gets upset when a new female reporter comes in and is given the story about a possibly corrupt politician that he had unsuccessfully been investigating.
When the paper finds out about the son of a wealthy businessman being secretly detained by authorities, Lou decides to have Rossi investigate. However, when a CIA agent thwarts the investigation before it begins, everyone begins to suspect there is a CIA informant working at the paper.
After Rossi's friend reveals that he has damaging information about the unsafe conditions at a nuclear plant, he is "accidentally" struck and killed by a car. Eager to prove that it was no accident, Rossi continues the investigation into the nuclear plant.
Lou reluctantly goes for a physical and finds out that he has a thyroid condition that requires surgery. At the paper, he offers advice to an intern who wants to become a reporter. Rossi learns that he has a good chance at a Pulitzer prize for his story on mental hospitals.
The hard drinking husband of a popular female politician makes headlines while the Trib staff makes news itself in a gossip magazine. The Trib learns a hard lesson about what happens when private lives become public from Rossi's tough coverage of elected official, Bonita Worth, and Lou's firing of a resentful reporter.
To help with a story on the legalization of gambling, Lou befriends an elderly man who has inside tips for betting on the horses. Billie's new boyfriend uses her to feed his gambling addiction.
Andrew is put on trial for the murder of a young woman who lived in his mother's flat. Art wants to protect his cousin but realizes that the Tribune's coverage may work against the case.
Rossi visits a small town where book burnings are back in fashion and a young teacher loses her job for teaching too radical ideas. Back at the Trib', Charlie refuses to publish a satirical comic strip in lieu of being sued.
The paper's long standing streak of having a daily newspaper published is threatened by a blackout.
Lou sticks his neck out to try and help Adam, who develops a serious drinking problem. However, when Adam's drinking problems gets worse and he expects Lou to keep covering for him, Lou regrets getting involved.
When Lou goes back to his elderly home to settle his aunt's estate, he meets an old flame and gets his first story assignment in years from Charlie.
Sharon McNeil gets a story about child pornography by promising not to reveal the names of her source. A promise her superiors at the Trib and the L.A. police department soon want her to break. Art goes out on a helicopter jump with some volunteer rescuers and young reporter Lance has big dreams involving dating Billie and becoming the first newsman in space.
The Tribune hires an old acquaintance of Animal's from 'Nam: photographer Lee Van Tam. But Tam's domestic troubles interfere with his work. Lou tries to get out of meeting visiting relatives.
When a story about hostility between surfers only makes the situation worse, the Tribune is blamed. Billie and Ted have bought a house and are warned by a neighbor about a group home next door.
Lou is shot by a robber, who is in turn killed by policeman Vince DeMayo. Both Vince and Lou have a difficult time getting their life back in order.
