Mr. DF Wallace's Lingo

[vatroslav]

Hello Everyone,

I am reading How Fiction Works by James Wood at the moment. Mr. Wood quotes DF Wallace at one point, and presents the reader with an excerpt from one of Wallace's short stories. Here's an excerpt from the excerpt:

The other Style piece the associate editor had referred to concerned The Suffering Channel, a wide grid cable venture that Atwater had gotten Laurel Manderley to do an end run and pitch directly to the editor's head intern for WHAT IN THE WORLD.

I must admit I am having difficulties in understanding the proper meaning of this sentence. Is this some kind of baseball lingo? What exactly did Laurel Manderley do? Did Atwater take the job intended for the editor's head intern? This end run and pitch part is especially confusing.

Many thanks for your help in advance.

I.

 

[GoesStation]

Pitch means "propose"; in the film and television industry, an aspiring director looking for funding pitches a summary of the project to potential investors.

The part of the sentence after the comma is a hopeless muddle. Words are missing and it doesn't make sense.

 

[vatroslav]

Thank you. My thoughts exactly. Wood does disapprove of this type of writing.
I just thought I am the only one not making sense out of this sentence.

 

[vatroslav]

Thanks. Yes, it is clearer, but I still fell there's a preposition or two missing in this sentence.
I believe that WHAT IN THE WORLD refers to the actual name of the program, and it's been written in capital letters.

 

[GoesStation]

The other Style piece the associate editor had referred to concerned The Suffering Channel, a wide grid cable venture that Atwater had gotten Laurel Manderley to do an end run on and pitch directly to the editor's head intern for WHAT IN THE WORLD.

Thanks. Yes, it is clearer, but I still fell there's a preposition or two missing in this sentence.
I believe that WHAT IN THE WORLD refers to the actual name of the program, and it's been written in capital letters.

I agree - see above.

 

[vatroslav]

I agree - see above.

Precisely. I kept unconsciously inserting that "on" each time I tried to decipher this sentence.