The newspapers are dying.

They were once proud. Noble. The Fourth Estate! Guardians of democracy! The ones who made politicians sweat with their headlines and editorials that sounded like stern headmasters with canes in their hands.

But slowly, they are being replaced—by phone screens and keyboard warriors. Suddenly, every colony aunt with a forward-happy thumb and a fondness for random capitalisation has become a journalist. “BREAKING: Drink Gin and Tonic to Avoid Traffic Jams!” she posts, and fifty share.

The real press is panicking.

Some try to keep up—flashing bold red banners for the blandest news. “EXCLUSIVE: Man Slips on Banana Peel!” screams one tabloid. Another goes with “CELEBRITY NUDES! Pictures Inside!”

But sales keep sinking.

So, in my imagination, the story goes and in true newspaper style, the owners do what they’ve always done in times of crisis: hold a meeting.

A big one. International. All the great press barons fly in—some wearing ties last knotted by real professionals-their wives.

In walks the motivational speaker they’ve hired. He looks the part: long beard, longer pause between words, and that mysterious half-smile which says, “I can change things for you.”

“What do we do?” they ask, eyes pleading, wallets open.

“Simple,” he says, stroking his beard like a wiseman who has just seen the star in the east.

“Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing.”

Silence. A paper rustles nervously.

“You mean… cover politics with dignity?” one whispers.

“No,” the guru says. “Stop covering crime, chaos, corruption. Start printing stories about love. Kindness. Goodness. Cover what’s right in the world.”

It is so outrageous, they try it.

And the next morning, headlines change.

Gone are the murders, scams and doomsday forecasts. In come stories of a ten-year-old feeding stray dogs. Of a nurse cycling 10 km to reach her patient during a strike. Of a man who returns a wallet instead of turning it into his goldmine strike.

And can you believe it? Circulation goes up!

People are reading again.

Not because of shock or scandal, but because it makes them feel… human.

Sales graphs start doing something no one has seen in years—they rise. Editors blink. Publishers weep. One sub-editor even smiles (for the first time since the digital era began).

They call the bearded guru again.

“How?” they ask.

“Simple,” he says, sipping his telltale coffee from an ancient mug, “there are ten times more good deeds in the world than bad ones. You just weren’t reporting them.”

And just like that, the newspaper industry finds its soul again.

Now every morning, readers wake up not to noise, but to notes of hope. The paper doesn’t scream. It speaks. Like a friend. Like it should.

It reports what is really happening!

And in my imagination, WhatsApp? It still shouts. But we’ve learned to mute that uncle.

Because sometimes, all it takes to win a war… is good news…!

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