The Walkerville Weekly Reader

The Walkerville Weekly Reader is proud to announce support for the latest in Internet technologies, the “trackback”. Using the “trackback”, bloggers or other newsmen can quote from a Reader article, link to the Reader for attribution, and then “ping” our “server” to let us know about it. Our “server”, suitably gratified from a good “pinging”, will then link back to the mention.

That’s right. Unlike other members of the mainstream media, whom decorum prohibits naming, we enjoy it when the little people talk about us. These bloggers in their basements are quaint creatures, like Smurfs, and their rituals should be encouraged.

It’s like letters to the editor, without us having to hire a letter opener. Letters are dangerous things, even from the wise to the wise, and all paper-cuts may go ill.

There are of course requirements. There are layers upon layers of fact-checking, because we are a mainstream media source. And, you must provide a URL, because that is required and we are all about following the law. But being good newspapermen, we also create our own invisible laws, and one of those is that you must also say who you are. Either blog_name or title must be provided. There may be other laws, which we shall make up and retroactively enforce against conservatives, tea-partiers, and racists.¹

The URL for trackbacks to an article is in the footer of the article.²

You can, indeed, subscribe to an RDF site summary of the Walkerville Weekly Reader. We know how important it is to receive the most up-to-date news from the most trusted news source on the Internet.

Most recent on-line news gathering software support an ‘RSS’ feed, otherwise known as an “RDF Site Summary”. It is an XML headline feed; you just can’t get any more buzzword compliant than that. What it means is that if your blog, journal, portal, or whatever else supports RSS, you can get the headlines and short description of the most recent articles on the Broadsheet delivered straight to you in a block on your web page or other device.

Just copy the URL http://www.hypocritae.com/feed/ into wherever your device requests an RSS URL.

We at the Reader pride ourselves on our journalistic boldness, our willingness to do our readers the courtesy of going that extra step, to shine light upon the truths that others do not see. Everything in the Reader is as trustworthy as articles you might read in the New York Times, the New Republic, or an Oscar-winning documentary.

Some of the stories broken here include John Walters ending prohibition, Attorney General Ashcroft promising respect for minority rights, and Hillary Clinton resigning as first lady. Yes, we were laughed at, but history has... well, never mind. Where what you read here extends the boundaries of reality, it is at least what our reporters wish were true. In the end, this is all that professional journalism can aspire towards.