Minor subplots involve Alicia, Bernie and Sun columnist Michael McDougal (Randy Quaid). McDougal is threatened by an angry city official named Sandusky (Jason Alexander) whom McDougal's column had been tormenting for the past several weeks. Their drunken confrontation in a bar leads to gunfire, which gets Alicia shot in the leg through the wall. Alicia, who is having an affair with Sun reporter Carl (Bruce Altman) and has expensive tastes, schemes to get a raise in her salary. Bernie reveals to Henry that he has recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, which causes him to spend time tracking down his estranged daughter Deanne White (Jill Hennessey), in an attempt to reconcile before his time is up.
Meanwhile, a hot story is circulating the city, involving the murder of two white businessmen in Brooklyn and two African American teenagers arrested for the crime, which both Henry and McDougal believe to be false charges (due to overhearing NYPD discuss the arrest on the Sun office's police scanner). Because of this story, Henry is wrought with tough decisions, deadlines and personal crises (including his interpersonal issues with Alicia). He becomes obsessed with getting to the bottom of the case, getting others from the Sun staff to investigate along with him. He goes so far as to blow his job offer at the Sentinel after he steals information about the case from the editor's desk notes and reports it during a Sun staff meeting.