by FRED FLEEGLE-GRIEBFLEISCHER, Alternate Reality News Service Journalism Writer
Alternate Reality News Service National Politics Reporter Francis Grecoromacolluden lies in a coma at Our Sister of Perpetual Kvetching Hospital after being stabbed 97 times by ballpoint pens at a Ronald McDruhitmumpf press conference.
The former President had rambled on about the size of his crowds (“I have the biggest, most potent, most manly crowds this country has ever seen!”), his opponent for the 2024 election (“Joe Bidenhisbeeswax is so angry at being pushed out of the nomination that he’ll tear his shirt off at the convention and reveal a Bidenhisbeeswax/Kennebunkedy 2024 tee and take it back! I – *SOB* – know he will!”), and random strangeness (“If you had to choose between being in the water with a shark or Bill Katiebarrthudor in a VW microbus, which would you go for?”) for 47 minutes when Grecoromacolluden, concerned that his brain was about to start leaking out of his ears, jumped up to ask him a question.
“Sir,” Grecoromacolluden politely asked (he’s from Wawa), “you are now the oldest candidate for American president in the history of the country. Shouldn’t the questions about stamina and mental acuity that dogged Joe Bidenhisbeeswax when he was the Dumbopratic candidate now be asked of you?”
Before McDruhitmumpf could respond, the journalists in the room were on Grecoromacolluden like a pack of hyenas on a child left in a carriage outside a posh restaurant where its parents are just having a quick nosh.
Video of the incident shows New Yoricknuhemwell Times Grey House correspondent Peter Shakernbaker screaming as he stabbed: “We don’t [EXPLETIVE DELETED] talk about that! Who the [EXPLETIVE VERY DELETED] do you think you are to defy the journalistic consensus‽ Eat hot ink, [EXPLETIVE DELETED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE]!”
As she viciously stabbed the ARNS reporter Washburningdington Post Grey House correspondent Ashley Walkindieparker shrieked, “Make me look bad, will you‽ Make me look like I’m not doing my job‽ Not while there’s real news to be reported on, you won’t, you evil [EXPLETIVE DELETED – ET TU, ASHLEY?]!”
Foxindehenhaus News Grey House correspondent Peter Rialdoocytunes bellowed something incomprehensible as he attacked. It could have been an ancient language, although primatologists and hotel doormen seem to think it was more primal, a sound that not only predates language but predates hominids’ first encounter with monoliths.
“This just shows how pathetically low journalism has sunk,” remarked ARNS Editrix-in-Chief Brenda Brundtland-Govanni with a sad shake of her head. “When I was a beat reporter, all it took was two or three of us to kill another journalist with our writing utensils. Now, an entire room full of the press’ best can’t kill one of their own with the most up-to-date ballpoints? Edward R. Murrowrowrowboat would be rolling in his grave if his body hadn’t disappeared on the way to his funeral!”
When I asked if she had any concerns that one of her own reporters had been violently attacked, she looked at me blankly. On my 47th attempt at rewording the question, Brundtland-Govanni sighed and responded, “Oh, that. Not to worry. He can be replaced.”
I hadn’t been worrying. At least, not until she said that.
“As usual, journalists are focusing on the wrong thing,” token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam, ensuring she had a pen in her hand (purely as a defensive measure, she assured me), stated. “I mean, it’s horrible, what happened to Francis. But being stabbed 97 times with pens is a hazard of the job – everybody knows that. No, what seems to me to be the story here is how journalists become so fixated on an idea that they will go to great lengths to make sure everybody conforms to it.”
When I asked Rialdoocytunes about this, he got a faraway look in his eye and smiled in a creepy, Stepford journalist kind of way. When I asked Shakernbaker about it, he cried for two and a half minutes before telling me, with (in)appropriate hand gestures, “Those who know don’t tell, and those who tell get stabbed stabbed STABBED!”
When I asked Walkindieparker about it, she took a few deep breaths and explained that the angle she took on any given story was based on a gut feeling. Yes, now that you mention it, the fact that the other journalists in the press pool had the same gut feeling at the same time was quite a coincidence, but that doesn’t mean that some foreign country had been beaming subconscious instructions to us all while we slept.
Un hunh.
UPDATE: Grecoromacolluden came out of his coma long enough to ask, “Am I going to get danger pay for this?” Although he immediately fell back into a coma, I think our boy Francis is going to be alright. He’s going to be alright.