"Were those newspaper editors really that cooperative?"
At the Felistin Family's headquarters in Number Three Floating City, its head, Ivan, looked at the huge stack of newspapers his subordinate had brought him and immediately voiced his doubts.
Nearly every paper carried an interview with the contestant "Philly," filled with things no ordinary Magic Duel contestant would ever say.
It baffled him. Had he paid them that much? Enough for the reporters to rewrite interviews at will and risk charges of disrupting public order?
Reporters sometimes twisted headlines, but they usually relied on misleading wording. They did not fill the articles themselves with outrageous statements.
If an interviewee saw something like this and filed a report with the Investigator Branch, anyone with even a few connections could get several reporters hauled in for questioning under spells.
Under that kind of questioning, the Investigators would make you talk even if you did not want to.
Besides, the articles were absurd. He had never seen so much disparagement in a newspaper. Had the editors-in-chief not reviewed them?
As he kept reading and reached the inside pages, Ivan thought it would have been acceptable to put all the negative stories there.
Moving them to the front page was better, of course. But apparently the inside pages were also full of stories about "Philly."
Following Fran's instructions to the newspapers, they had carefully interviewed other Main Tournament contestants.
One contestant showed considerable professionalism, refraining from belittling his peers the way Fran had.
He was not in Fran's group. Because the Evening News had come out first, he already knew her reputation had taken a hit.
He chose his words carefully. Rather than suggest the reporters might have altered her interview, he avoided saying anything that might drag him into the controversy.
Instead, he said Fran's