The photograph 8/9

The editor of the Advertiser was browsing as usual through all the national and local papers hoping to find something of interest to print concerning local affairs. The story about the yacht discovered in the pond, had all fallen through. A local journalist had visited the Bell’s cottage and assured him that everything there was just as they’d said. Whoever the boat belonged to wasn’t local at all, nor probably was the pond either. That was the trouble with modern cameras, everyone these days could be a joker and prove it with a picture! He sighed and turned to the Holmwood Informer.

“Oh crumbs that’s torn it!” he exclaimed as he saw the front page spread. Just one huge picture and a very large headline! Lying in the main road right outside his offices was one of the luggers shown in the pond in his own paper the previous week. “Ridiculous attempt to prove existence of magic exposed!” said the headline. He turned the page and there was a picture of the Informer offices. A log-faced quay had replaced the kerb of the pavement outside, while the road had been turned into a river. Six identical luggers were moored alongside.

“We have more boats than the Holmwood Advertiser!” declared a smaller headline. The story continued in much smaller print. “Manipulation of photographs is too well known these days to prove anything without substantial evidence to back it up. We can assure our readers that the presence of neither the sailing boat, shown by a rival local newspaper last week in a non-existent local pond, nor the river and boats outside our offices, has been ‘proved’ by these pictures.

In the opinion of this paper, sensational journalism such as this has no place in local affairs. The pathetic attempt by another local paper to convince people that witchcraft exists, based on a conjuring show at the local school and a faked photograph from a person who is probably laughing all the way to the bank at this very moment, is an insult to the intelligence of the local population.

We appeal to our competitor to prove his professionalism by printing local news and not by sensational attempts to increase circulation and hence advertising revenue by such mindless antics.”

“Rather good I thought,” said Dave, throwing the Informer onto the breakfast table. “If that doesn’t do it I don’t know what will. Not only that, but no names are mentioned anywhere. The only people who know what is behind all this are the next door neighbours and ourselves. And they can only guess that we’re involved with the Informer.”