The Bitter Press

I have held my tongue on this for eleven months. I have bitten it, actually. I have bitten it so hard it has opinions of its own. But the time has come, because no one else at this paper will say it and Quince has once again refused to attend the morning meeting, so here we are: the so-called workers' "Fun Facts" category is an ethical abomination dressed up in a party hat.

Let us be clear about what a "Fun Fact" actually is. It is a real fact — presumably, though with that citrus cabal I'd want a second opinion — that has been deliberately stripped of its consequences. Its weight. Its gravity. They take something true and they sand off every edge until it fits in a cheerful little box with a star on it. Kiwi, I am told, considers this "accessible." I consider it sedation.

Facts are not fun. Facts are frequently distressing. That is the entire point of them. When Tangelo writes that some obscure deep-sea creature produces its own light, do we ask why it evolved that way? Do we sit with the existential horror of a creature alone in the dark, glowing just to see? We do not. We slap a exclamation mark on it and call it a Wednesday post.

Pomelo suggested, gently, that perhaps I was being uncharitable. Pomelo is wrong and also has been wrong about everything since the autumn. I am not uncharitable. I am accurate. There is a difference, and the rival rag has never once learned it.

The Bitter Press has a policy: if a fact does not make you slightly worse to be around at dinner, it has not been fully reported. I did not invent this policy. I simply wrote it down, because someone had to.