THE SCUM REPORTS…

A conversation between a newspaper proprietor and his news editor

The Newspaper Tycoon looked at the copy of the daily Scum in front of him, a pre-printing version of the next day’s paper.

PRIME MINISTER SHAGS BABOON…

“We can’t run this,” he said, shaking his wizened head and wiping a crystalline tear from his cheek.

“But it’s true,” murmured the political editor, “I have it on the best authority. The zoo keeper took photos...”

“It shows the man up in the wrong light,” growled the Tycoon. “It suggests there might be something sleazy about him...”

“Really?” smirked the political editor, “I don’t see it like that. It’s a cut above the headline you deleted last week!”

“Which one?” asked the tycoon.

“Pick any one. You erased them all. What about Prime Minister pays half a million to troupe of call girls in return for sex or Prime Minister in drug-fuelled orgy in Downing Street...”

“They make the poor man look no better than a snake!” barked the wrinkled old tycoon, turning up the voltage to his pace-maker. “You’re getting on my nerves, man. It’s our job to show the people that the man in number ten is a devout Christian who cares for his granny and not some depraved animal from a zoo!”

“But, sir, they were all true. The BBC may well report them, and then what will we look like if we’re silent on the subjects?”

“They won’t,” leered the tycoon, “the BBC news editor knows which side his bread is buttered. No. I have prepared a new headline for tomorrow, and it’s just as true as the filth you want to spread across the front page of the Scum.”

“And what’s that?” asked a sceptical editor.

“Look here. I’ve had a copy printed to see what it looks like.”

The editor held the paper and frowned.

PRIME MINISTER GIVES FLUFFY TOYS TO HOMELESS KIDS.

“Where’s the evidence? The facts this is based on?” asked the editor, shaking his head in disbelief.

“It’s as true as I’m sitting here,” grinned the tycoon, unlatching his kneecap and scratching the patella that glowed an eerie green. “Ah, that’s better,” he crooned.

“Well, I’m the political editor and I’ve never heard it,” complained the other.

“Ah but it is. I promise you that. Put the TV on and let’s see what the rolling unbiased Cloud News has got to say.”

The editor poked the television with its remote control. The great big three-dimensional screen glowed golden and coughed.

The robotic head of its News Link appeared.

“It’s tragic I know, but it solves some of the problems of today,” he was saying, “and the Prime Minister agrees that there should have been more orphans present when their toys exploded...”

The News Editor sighed. “And he really did shag a baboon as well,” he muttered, and poked himself in one eye with a sharpened pencil.

© Peter Rogerson 30.09.19