You are holding in your hands a piece of reporting that prefers to tell the truth about itself: it is a game with a rule that keeps shifting.
Rest assured: all inconsistencies have been vetted by a wholly imaginary committee of irreproachable seriousness.
This morning at 8:03 a.m., this paper realized it was a paper. Seized by a sudden typographic self-awareness, it checked its punctuation, readjusted its left margin, and proclaimed itself “important,” because that’s the sort of thing an article does when it wants to be read before coffee. The illustration photo tried to load, hesitated, then chose to remain unfindable for dramaturgical reasons.
“We officially confirm that none of this happened, and that is precisely why it’s crucial,” declared Marin Comma, self-proclaimed director of the Office of Necessary Parentheses, signing with a signature far too elegant for a Thursday. According to this specialist, reality, tired of carrying all the weight of the plausible, now outsources its explanations to well-meaning columns.
On the bottom banner, a caption demands an image, the image demands context, and the context demands a nap. The writer, who is nothing but a voice in brackets [yes, this one], swears to having followed a “rigorous method based on italics and good intentions.” The headline, a little jealous of its own emphasis, threatens to switch back into small caps if you keep looking at it like that.
Here, ordinarily, would come a reasonable conclusion. But it took the afternoon off. In its place, this paragraph thanks you for having read it diagonally, promises to be quoted out of context at dinner, and bows with credibility neatly folded in thirds. Back on the newsstand tomorrow, if realism permits.
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