“Look, the issue with bad journalism is just this: if it is well-written, that's like half-strength cyanide: it doesn't help to dilute the lies, because you'll take in more and be killed just as dead. The Lofton County Free Voice is bitter medicine, and you won't like it, but once you get the truth in you, it will help you.”
16-year-old Tom Stepforth III was explaining to a friend why the Free Voice just “hit different” to some young friends of his who got their news online.
“Listen, to let the Big Loft Bulletin tell it, there's nothing wrong and you're just going to be living your life with no problems even though certain officials have not been doing sewer and water system repairs for 20 years in certain neighborhoods even though water runs everywhere, and winter is coming – read what we have coming out Monday and those of you of voting age can vote out the people responsible. We've got the documents. This is how we do this.”
Ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow and his baby brother five-year-old Lil' Robert Ludlow from next door were listening.
“First of all, who is out here diluting poison and lies and serving them to people?” Andrew said.
“Whoever they are, we need to work with Tom and stop them!” Lil' Robert said.
“Darn straight,” Andrew said. “This is just dumb – the world is rough enough already!”
“And they could be eating all this good food, but no!” Lil' Robert said. “They gotta be doing all this!”
“I'm going to get my notebooks, and you go get your best red crayons, because this is ridiculous and we gotta help Tom out – putting cyanide into the water supply and lying about it? Just no. Our grandfather is Captain Robert Edward Ludlow Sr. – he wouldn't stand for this and we're not going to either so we gotta hold this down until he gets back.”
“And I'm Robert Edward Ludlow III so you know I gotta double not stand for it – I gotta get George and Grayson over here too, and by virtue of the Ludlowness vested in us -- !”
So, the entire Ludlow man-training unit – ten-year-old Andrew, nine-year-old George, six-year-old Grayson, and five-year-old Lil' Robert all walked over the property line and offered their assistance, to the absolute laugh-o-rama of everyone over 18 because –.
“Well, look, my dad runs the Stepforth Independent Study Group, and we don't discriminate, so, I'm just going to start the Stepforth Journalism School for Young People, and y'all can go take over the Big Loft Bulletin and these other papers and get them on point! Y'all sit down – and tell your sisters they can come too.”
“And thus it was,” Thomas Stepforth Sr. intoned before getting down on the floor before he fell down laughing, “that the journalism of Lofton County was revolutionized, and neither raw sewage, nor cyanide, nor lies would run undetected and unopposed in its streets.”