The great thing about practicing journalism at a time when corporal punishment is back in vogue is that you don't have to worry about telling the truth. You can't imagine what a big load it is off our backs not to have to double-check every piece of gossip and conspiracy theory for its veracity and accuracy, if any.
Suddenly, we can forget everything we ever learnt in journalism school and just make it all up as we go along. When it is against the law to tell the truth and nothing but the truth so help us God, we can all sit back, relax in front of the tv with a cylinder of Pringles and let the chips fall where they may.
It's not as hard as you think for us scribes and journos when we are requested in the national interest to ensure that there is no truth in what we say. And you, dear readers, should by now know better than to believe every word we say. You should only believe every other word.
If, perchance, a bit of authentic fact does somehow find itself inadvertently into print then we are duty-bound by the code of conduct of our professional ethics to issue a correction in the next edition of the paper. That little insert buried in the inside pages therefore is an important clue to our valued customers about items the previous day that the editors mistakenly thought were wrong but were in actual fact right and therefore had to be immediately refuted so that people didn't get the wrong idea. So, as a newspaper of record here are this week's politically corrected news items.
CORRECTIONS
The caption accompanying the front page picture in yesterday's paper mistakenly said that 80-year-old trees along Pulchok were being chopped down. What the picture actually shows are the trees in the process of being re-assembled and glued together as a part of the municipality's tree translocation and graft campaign which it is carrying out in cahoots with logging contractors. Beg your pardon, we will be more careful next time. -Ed.
Due to a reporting error, a news item in yesterday's edition said the Maoists have called an indefinite nationwide transportation strike. The strike is now definite. The terror is regretted.
A news item in yesterday's paper about DIG Gopal Man Shrestha caught red-handed running a red light at Baneshwor intersection and not being able to produce his driving license, while being factually correct was incomplete. The Valley Traffic Police has given up trying to control Kathmandu's kamikaze drivers and has subcontracted the job to retired Japanese freelancers since they're the only ones who can make head or tail of the solar-powered Maitighar traffic lights which are working again after being under repairs since last June. Inconvenience caused to the red-faced DIG is regretted. - Ed.
Due to space constraints caused by the downsizing of our newspaper, a news item in yesterday's edition referred to the high-up authority by his first name, omitted honorifics and failed to capitalise his Official Title. Sorry about that, we're now returning to our broadsheet size.
There was a typo in last week's new item on page one about God being detained again soon after his release. The correct title should have been: 'Re-arresting God in Kathmandu'. We apologise for the inconvenience.
