Rita Skeeter ( WAS: Re: Hermione's growth)

[msbeadsley]

No: HPFGUIDX 82594

In message # 82567, Fred Waldrop wrote:
> but at least she did not PERSONALLY try to KILL anyone, just 
> humiliate them. There is a difference between being "HORRIBLE" and 
> UNKIND. But, perhaps I have met more people and understand there 

<wincing>...er...is it NECESSARY to shout?

In message # 82571, Salit wrote:
> The real story was boring? Had she bothered to do some real 
> research, she might have been able to write about the saving of the 
> Sorcerers' Stone or about the basilisk and maybe even Tom Riddle 
> (granted, saving Sirius Black was top secret).

She wasn't about to write about narrowly averted disasters (unless
they were averted by the Ministry). She wants to sell papers, and the
atmosphere then is one where denial of any activity by LV is the 
party line. The idea is to titillate readers, not scare them silly. 
The flipside: didn't Neville say, when he expressed solidarity with 
Harry, that his grandmother had stopped taking The Daily Prophet? In 
most other households, any suggestion that LV was back would have 
been grounds to cancel their subscription. Or so the paper thought, 
anyway. With Fudge and the Ministry acknowledging, the party line has 
changed.

Salit con't:
> Instead she looked for dirt. The first thing we find about her, 
> from her Quick Quotes Quill is that her goal as a journalist is 
> blowing people's reputation - not accounting to the public what 
> really happens in the world.

Of course she did. People love dirt, and watching other people fall 
from grace into it. It makes them feel so superior and sage. They eat 
it right up, just like children who have a chemical imbalance and who 
are found eating mud.

Salit con't:
> Responsible journalism is to write the story as close to the truth 
> as possible. In our non-magical world there are also strict rules 
> about what you can publish about minors - and for good reason. Had 
> she been writing in some second rate paper it may have been 
> acceptable. But the Daily Prophet is something like the NY Times 
> here. One would expect some level of responsibility on the part of 
> the editors and its writers.

I think it's more like the New York Daily News, personally. I don't
The WW *has* a NY Times.

And Rita Skeeter is definitely a toe-rag (what precisely *is* a toe-
rag, please? Is it like a snot-rag here in the U.S., a bit of grossly 
grubby rubbish?) of a journalist. Rita doesn't care how furthering of 
her greedy agenda affects anyone else. On the other hand, Umbridge 
actually believes in what she's doing. She believes she is the one 
who should be ordering things. Rita loves success in a material 
sense, while Dolores is after power. They each use the tools and 
opportunities at hand. They both seem to take pleasure in punishing 
people who get in the way of their agendas. I think a key point here 
is that Umbridge *believes*. While it makes her somewhat less vapid, 
it also makes her more dangerous, and less redeemable. One *can* 
appeal to Rita's self-interest, as Hermione did. And it's conceivable 
(has been suggested here on the list) that Rita might start to see 
that she could succeed and have some ethics, too, if she thought on 
the response to the article she wrote for The Quibbler. It took real 
trauma to put a spoke in Dolores' wheel, and there's no indication 
that it's going to stay there (although I agree that her political 
power has taken a beating; I wouldn't be surprised to see her getting 
her own dark mark next book).

Sandy