[Intro]
[Muted piano plays the ON AIR motif one note at a time while a solo cello holds beneath it.]

[Verse 1]
Powder settles on my sleeve,
Makeup hides what I believe.
Thirty years behind this desk,
Every war reduced to text.
I have named the dead at dawn,
Stayed when half the lights were gone.
Now one sentence waits in red,
Crossed by hands above my head.

[Chorus]
The anchor lowers his eyes
When the camera asks who lies.
He scans the page, he keeps the pace,
But cannot give the truth his face.
The anchor lowers his eyes—
And a trusted voice quietly dies.

[Verse 2]
Jonah’s copy said “coercion,”
Legal changed it to “assertion.”
“Threatened judges” softened down
Into “tensions around town.”
Every phrase was smooth and neat,
No sharp corner, no blood, no heat.
I heard the teleprompter roll,
White words passing through my soul.

[Chorus]
The anchor lowers his eyes
When the camera asks who lies.
He scans the page, he keeps the pace,
But cannot give the truth his face.
The anchor lowers his eyes—
And a trusted voice quietly dies.

[Instrumental]
[Solo cello carries the chorus melody while low guitars enter in slow, single-note chords.]

[Bridge]
Jonah stood beyond the lens,
Not accusing—worse, a friend.
He held the facts I could not lose,
I could stop. I could refuse.
The red light came. The choice was mine.
I breathed—and spoke the altered line.

[Break]
No shout. No guard.
No order barked.
No chain. No cell.
Only the anchor lowering his eyes.

[Final Chorus]
The anchor lowers his eyes,
And the camera memorizes.
He scans the page, he keeps his place,
While fear performs behind his face.
The anchor lowers his eyes,
But no clean edit cleans the lies.

[Outro]
The theme music rose, the red eye closed,
A stagehand asked how well it flowed.
I left my glasses on the page
And saw myself inside their cage.