GR translation: The word reached him during a government newsreel.

[Mike Jing]

V542.26-38, P551.31-552.3   The word reached him during a government
newsreel. FROM CLOAK-AND-DAGGER TO CROAK-AND-STAGGER, the sequin title
twinkled to all the convalescent souls gathered for another long night of
cinema without schedule—shot of a little street-crowd staring in a dusty
show-window, someplace so far into the East End that no one except those
who lived there had ever heard of it . . . bomb-tilted ballroom floor of
the ruin slipping uphill behind like a mountain meadow, but dodgy as a
trampoline to walk upon, conch-twisting stucco columns tilted inward, brass
elevator cage drooping from the overhead. Right out in front was a
half-naked, verminous and hairy creature, approximately human, terribly
pale, writhing behind the crumbled remains of plate glass, tearing at sores
on his face and abdomen, drawing blood, scratching and picking with
dirt-black fingernails.

What does "the word" refer to here?
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