By Luke Warm
Professor of Mendacity
University of Munchausen
My favorite war hero is Horatio Hornblower.
Remember when Lieutenant Hornblower was assigned to conduct a battalion of royalist French soldiers to the coast of France?
That was during my favorite war, which was the War of the French Revolution and Napoleon.
A lot of people got killed in that war, heads guillotined off and all that, but it was a long time ago and who cares?
War stories are fun!
Anyway, back to Horatio: The good English sailors were not happy to have French soldiers on board an English warship.
“These here are frogs,” they told Hornblower. “We’re at war with the frogs.”
Thinking fast, Hornblower told the tars, “These are good frogs.”
Good Frogs and Bad Frogs.
That makes me think of a very important point I need to make to the entire student body about how there are Good Lies and Bad Lies.
But oh yes, I almost forgot: Before I begin today’s back-to-back lectures on “The Uses of Deceit in the Modern Newsroom” and “Backstabbing: Positive Results from Treachery in Newspaper Production” and “Editorial Hypocrisy as a Tool is no Embarassment,” I’d like to drop my little bomb.
You’ve all read those essays on the JOTR blog by a veritable stable of writers, one of whom is me, right?
Well, guess what: A whole bunch of those so-called writers are fakes!
That’s right, just about every one of those bylines is a big fat scam!
At least, I’m pretty sure.
And who needs more than “pretty sure” these days to float a news story?
Not me!
Walker Punt, the so-called JOTR “dramatist”?
Made up.
Hugo Halftime, the alleged “sports writer”?
Tell me another.
Pete Pizzicato, the so-called JOTR “music critic”?
Call him Pseudo-Pete.
Melanie Munch, the JOTR “food critic”?
Flavor her a faker.
The leader of this flock of phonies is real enough. I know, because it was good ol’ JT who retained me to write my column on prevarication for fun and profit.
But you know, he goes too far.
Every time a goofy name pops into his head, he thinks he has to place it over some whacky column and claim the author is another of his staffers.
Misleading?
I guess!
If he worked at a REAL news outlet, he’d be in violation of their ethics guidelines for MISLEADING his readers.
If he had to buy real health insurance and pay real wages to these phantom authors, he’d be broke.
Remember what the Book of Luke says:
Good Lies are lies you get away with. Bad Lies are ones you get caught in.
Now, just as I teach you students, there are Good Lies and Bad Lies, so too there are good bogus bylines and bad bogus bylines.
I mean, it might just be that there is ONE phony byline on JOTR’s staff who is okay.
Not mine, of course — ha-ha!
Luke Warm is for real!
Did I just lie to you?
We won’t delve any more into THAT.
Now, here is a perfect example of the kind of journalistic hypocrisy that surrounds and really disgusts me: Who, I ask you, is “Walker Punt”?
Why, you might say, Walker Punt is nothing more than a hireling and lackey who writes what he is told to write by the leader of this blog, joelontheroad.com
Well, he’s nothing but pixels.
Don’t be fooled.
He’s a Bad Lie ’cause I caught him.
I’m a Good Lie ’cause I get away with it.
I rest my case.
