Selected to be an anchor on "Classroom Direct," seventeen-year-old Patrick Sheridan finds his journalistic idealism and his own self-image challenged when he leaves high school in Doggett, Texas, for the glamorous life in Los Angeles. Patrick is glad to leave his small Texas town for the bright lights of Los Angeles to become a student reporter on a news show. But after alienating his family and friends, his dream crumbles and he is left to pick up the pieces of his semi-charmed life, learning that fame is a lonely fellow.