I Read Books: The Truth

The Truth

William De Worde writes a letter for a small but discerning audience of foreigners, to tell them the news. Moveable type had previously been banned in Ankh-Morpork, due to the twin reasons of not using the same letters that have been used for magic and/or religious books and it being closed out by the Engraver’s Guild. De Worde falls in with some dwarves who have a printing press, and more by luck than judgment starts a newspaper, the Ankh-Morpork Times.

Pratchett, a former journalist, then cycles through about 200 years worth of development of journalism, with jokes and asides that delve deep into the triviality and nobility of the profession. After the Patrician makes a visit and decides to let them continue printing, the Engravers Guild strike back, founding a tabloid with dubious and sensational stories. De Worde puts together a reporting team, including a vampire iconographer (photographer) whose use of flash eels (that absorb sunlight) keeps making him crumble to dust. He’s also experimenting with eels that absorb dark, with weird and horrible effects.

As this newspaper war is starting a plot against the Patrician kicks off. It involves two out of town criminals who make a bit of a mess of it but manage to improvise so it appears the Patrician attacked his clerk and then was trying to flee town with saddlebags full of gold. This obviously makes no sense, but the moment the foundations shifts, everyone who would normally support him starts jockeying for power, the plotters who don’t like his changes (dwarves and trolls and foreigners coming in mostly) able to push forward a new candidate.

De Worde and his team of reporters are tangling with the lawyer who is the cut out on the plot, and who he manages to put off and put on the back foot by dictating a story about what he’s doing in the shed where they do the printing. The Watch is investigating the crime but can’t disprove the events, meanwhile everyone realises that the Times has parts of the story they don’t want, though they overestimate where they are. They don't know what the truth is, but they do have a piece of it.

This is all pretty funny.

Read This: It’s a Pratchett Discworld novel where he takes a concept from the real world and shoves it satirically into his wild and hilarious fantasy world
Don’t Read This: You don’t care about the press, especially when dwarves get involved