Updated: The editor of a newspaper in a small city begins printing fanciful stories to sell more papers; in the process, she stumbles on to a genuine corruption scandal with national implications.

Okay. My small town was certified small, population fewer than 1,000 at the time.

If your character is emulating Rupert Murdoch's business model, well, maybe it will work in a media market of the size you envision. However, if it's set in the present, then the premise is somewhat undermined by the competition of even juicer gossip (albeit not local) and more fanciful stories on the Internet.

But the critical issue that I suggest needs to be clarified in the logline is what the editor-publisher does after she stumbles on an inconvenient truth that is stranger than her fictions -- and no one believes her. After publishing so many falsehoods, why would they?

fwiw.

Okay. My small town was certified small, population fewer than 1,000 at the time.

If your character is emulating Rupert Murdoch's business model, well, maybe it will work in a media market of the size you envision. However, if it's set in the present, then the premise is somewhat undermined by the competition of even juicer gossip (albeit not local) and more fanciful stories on the Internet.

But the critical issue that I suggest needs to be clarified in the logline is what the editor-publisher does after she stumbles on an inconvenient truth that is stranger than her fictions -- and no one believes her. After publishing so many falsehoods, why would they?

fwiw.

Yeah, I wondered about that - salacious gossip. Living in Sydney but coming from Adelaide, I was actually thinking of a place the size of Newcastle or Bendigo. Not really 'small towns'; large enough to be anonymous but small enough for the story to work.