The deceitful newspaperman and gullible reader by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. Short summary

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To improve his financial situation, a newspaperman often printed untruths. After making a lot of money, the newspaperman decided to start printing truthful information. The money kept pouring in.

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To improve his financial situation, the newspaperman decided to deliberately misinform his own readers. The naivety of the readers and the loudness of the headlines increased the sales of the newspapers, and the next untruth printed only increased the discussion among the readers.

Other newspapermen envied the success of their competitors, but tried to entice their audiences in a different way. Namely, with truthful news. However, the truth did not generate the same interest as a lie.

At the same moment, there were people who urged the newspapers to change their editorial policy and start writing the truth. Even ordinary readers began to doubt the truth of what was written.

In a sense, the newspaperman himself turned out to be in tune with the activists. He was fed up with lying, so the truth appeared in the newspapers. The price of truth was the same as that of a lie — five kopecks a line.

As it turned out, truthful news is just as interesting to the reader as false news.