[Keep] The Schmallaki Hullabaloo

[Madame Trousers Son]

This short publication is left on the notice post outside the Keep, for the entertainment of the weary traveller between caravans...

opinion ✯ opinion ✯ opinion ✯ issue wun

Hullo. We are serious journalists. We uncover everyone else's truths. But not ours. You cant have ours. Their ours. OURS OURS OURS!

Truth will always prevail when there are pains to bring it to light.^†

†: Sounds real smart, huh? Like somethin real journalists would say. But our truths, they stay in da dark. I said their OURS! OURS OURS OURS!

JOURNALIST SHORTAGE IN BAROVIA!
Vraja Bird and Other Flapping Bipeds Hired!

By the Schmallak Revew Team^‡

There been a real shortage of real journalists in Vallaki since those heroes at da Review got kicked out for BRAVELY tellin their truth, uh, I meant bravely tellin THE truth! So we've been hirin new staff. We pleased ta report we got the Vraja bird as our new journalist! It just keeps repeatin things until people give up an assume they're true! Plus, we taught it to say "journalistic integrity" so we got that covered, too! Vraja Bird is the best journalist!

We also found these amazin birds in that Harakir place. They stick ther heads in da sand at the approach of trouble, so we figured, "Hey! Don't we need a new editor?! That's exactly the attitude we need when confrontin deep ethical and legal issues."

‡: (no I in our team name)

Schmallaki Review Editorial Staff hard at work!

HAVE YOU SEEN OUR INTEGRITY?

Advert by the Vallaki* Review

Have you seen our integrity?

We keep pretending we still have it, but the truth is we don't know where it is! Did we even have it in the first place? It's gotten so bad that we now have to deliberately mark our satire pieces so, because people might not be able to tell the difference!

Please be on the look out for our integrity! Help!

EXCLUSIVE! SCHMALLAKI HULLABALOO UNCOVERS EVIL CABAL
By Oh No Maria Cosovei

Dear readers, it's not often that a journalist gets to make a brave moral stand against Evil. Truly, the depths of darkness know no end, but I am proud to bring a shining light of truth to force back the shadows.

Who will be able to believe the truth of what I have uncovered, the whole scope of it? Who would believe that over all these years, a dark and evil cabal have been operating at the heart of all things? But I have all the evidence, I assure you. Indeed, they are there, present in our daily lives, working right out of the...

Wait, there's someone at my door.

...

...

...

Oh, I'm back. Where was I? Dark evil cabal? Hahaha. Just a little joke. Everything is fine. Don't look at me! Look over there! Vraja Bird! Isn't he funny? Such a great conversationalist, best one in the office... (Oh No Maria, what have you gotten yourself into this time?...)

INTERVIEW WITH THE VALLAKI* REVIEW
By our new reporter Vraja Bird

In a rare coup for real journalism, we managed to catch up with the utterly serious Dragomir Antonescu, elusive editor of the Vallaki* Review. We finally get to ask him the hard-hitting questions everyone has on their minds.

Vraja Bird: Dragomir Antonescu, thank you for talking to us. It means a lot that you would take some time out of your busy day to set the record straight and fight for the truth.

Dragomir Antonescu: Of course, anything to help a sister publication. You know we take the issue of journalistic integrity very seriously.

VB: JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY! SQWAUK! ... Er, pardon me. I'm glad you bring that up topic. I understand it's important for any journalist to protect their sources, and their knowing that you'll take the protection of their identity very seriously is critical to convincing them to talk to you, but don't you think there's a limit to how much you can protect how you came to the truth, if you are to present it for public consumption?

DA: No, the protection of our sources is paramount, and that's the end of the discussion. If people want to find out the truth, they're free to investigate it for themselves.

VB: Even if your sources won't talk to anyone else? What then?

DA: That's too bad. Guess other investigators should build up their journalistic integrity and --

VB: JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY! SQWAUK!

DA: Ahem. And put the protection of their sources as their primary objective, maybe those sources would talk to them then.

VB: But how can anyone else then get to the truth? How can the facts you allegedly discover, and your interpretation of those facts, be examined for good faith mistakes, errors, or outright manipulations and distortions? In other words: how can anyone else check your work and hold you to account?

DA: We hold ourselves to account. That's good enough. We leave it to our readers to judge for themselves the standard of our journalistic integrity --

VB: JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY! SQWAUK! ... Sorry again. But aren't some of your very own Barovian readers critical of your editorial standards? Aren't you publishing while getting basic facts wrong on a consistent basis?

DA: Well obviously we don't care about the opinion of those readers. Look, if you find that we've made an obvious mistake, then write to us and we'll print a correction, as long as you haven't pissed us off too much. Just don't ask us for the ability to check our work. We'd NEVER make a mistake like misunderstanding events, quoting liars or a completely biased account, or making things up whole cloth. Our sources are sacrosanct and PERFECT, AND WONDERFUL, AND OURS! OURS! OURS!

VB: Alright, calm down... Please, sit down. I promise we won't talk about your sources anymore. Anyway, ahem... What about the fact that some people who worked for you as investigators claim that you misrepresented them in your publications and called them reporters? Why should we believe you when you can't even keep your organisational structure straight?

DA: Look, words are fluid. If we say one day that they're an investigator and say the next that they're a reporter because they left and we had a falling out, it's not our problem.

VB: What about the law? Don't you think hiding things from the people actually tasked with uncovering and stopping crimes might be helping criminals?

DA: That's not our responsibility. Maybe law enforcement officers should stop trying to talk to us and busy themselves with their own investigations.

VB: But isn't that precisely the issue? They want the information that you're keeping to yourself. Information that you are, in some jurisdictions, compelled to provide.

DA: Again, the law isn't our problem. Our journalistic integrity isn't --

VB: JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY! SQWAUK!

DA: ... isn't accountable to anyone else.

VB: So let me understand. You're happy to publish and quote law-keeping officials and legal documentation when it suits your narrative and your agenda, even send investigators to speak to the authorities on your behalf without said authorities knowing who sent the investigators, but when they want to speak to you, have a genuine conversation, the door's closed?

DA: That's right. We get to hide from view, no-one else does.

VB: Don't you believe that a dialogue is the best way to get to the truth?

DA: Nope. It's a monologue and we're doing the talking. If you don't like it, careful, we might start doing some talking about you.

VB: You've been banished from Vallaki. Don't you think this attitude might have something to with it?

DA: Look, we were banned for "failure of communication on matters concerning their publications". Clearly the communication failure was on the Vallaki Garda's part. The fact that we keep our methods and our sources secret couldn't possibly have anything to do with it. Still, we want to play nice with the Garda, we want to go home after all.

VB: I see. Well, good luck with that and thank you for your time, Mr. Antonescu. Your availability today is a shining example of journalistic integrity. JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY! SQWAUK!

DA: You're very wel-- JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY! SQWAUK! ... Wait, what?

VB: JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY! SQWAUK!

DA: JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY! SQWAUK!

VB: JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY! SQWAUK!

(At this point, reporter Oh No Maria had to run in and throw a bucket of cold water over both interviewer and interviewee.)

ONM: Oh No! It's spreading....

Nuggets of Wisdom
With What I Found In My Chamber Pot This Morning

Dear Chamber Pot,

I am an overworked strawman argument used to dismiss the Vallaki* Review's critics. I have seen considerable employment for their paper, yet they haven't paid me a single bent rat-tooth. How can I get them to pay me my fair wages?

Regards,
Overworked Strawman

Dear Strawman,

I offer you thanks on behalf of Corb Corbeanu, it's true you have helped them make their career. I'm afraid I predict you will continue to see considerable employment at the Vallaki* Review without any acknowledgement of the hard and tireless work you perform.

Best of luck,
Chamber Pot

Dear Chamber Pot,

I'm trying to get the truth from the Vallaki* Review. I've appealed to their interest, their sense of integrity (although I guess by definition I shouldn't have to appeal to their integrity, right?), even to their mission statement of uncovering the truth, none of these have worked. Yet I notice that when they crossed the Red Vardo Traders, they quickly shut up, and it's hard not to remark upon their fawning over the Vallaki Garda.

Isn't the underlying message in their actions that violence, threats, and having genuine power over them, are more effective than truth or integrity?

Signed,
Confused by Mixed Messages

Dear Confused,

You are clearly very confused indeed, look not at what the Vallaki* Review does. Look at what it says about itself. That's how you get the real measure of any publication.

Best regards,
Chamber Pot
Dear Chamber Pot,

I'm very unhappy. I was assured that the legal authorities are obsessed with shoddy rags passing themselves off as journalists, yet when I went to talk to them, all they wanted to talk about is what I knew about crimes. What gives?

Signed,
Uncritical Reader

Dear Uncritical Reader,

Your first-hand experience is wrong.

We journalists shouldn't be the story. So if we've become the story, it's not our fault, it's someone else's, because we're protected by our journalistic integrity. Anyone choosing to write about us has nothing to do with the fact that incompetence masquerading as integrity is an easy target for someone with an ounce of creative nous and a desire to mock the metaphorical village idiots.

When real journalists try to uncover the truth, it's a brave crusade against the darkness, but when anyone else tries to follow up on this, there's something wrong with them.

Best regards,
Chamber Pot

CULPRITS

Editor (Old) / (New): Dragged-O'-Mire / Mr. Ostrich
Wisearse - What I Found In My Chamber Pot This Morning
Reporter - Oh No Maria Cosovei
Reporter - Vraja Bird
And other investigators we'll drop if they start asking us too many questions...

(*: Technically not the Vallaki Review since they're banished from Vallaki.)

[Vantes-]

A response was laid down next to the Hullabaloo.

[Madame Trousers Son]

An arrow points to the rear of the drawing, with the phrase, "It hurts the JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY!"

((Posted IC))