10 GOLDEN RULES FOR DAILY PROPHET READERS

1. You are not well informed. Stop pretending you are. The fact is that only failed fiction writers go and work for the Daily Prophet; that way they can continue doing what they love and they can also have a good laugh when people believe what they write and call it fact.

2. The crossword is designed to kill time and occupy your mind. It is not designed to be a group activity where you ask the advice of everyone within earshot. If you can't do the puzzle yourself, don't do it at all.

3. Writing angry letters to the Daily Prophet does not make you a political commentator. It doesn't mean that people should ask your opinion on the goings on of the Ministry of Magic and nor does it mean that you are smarter than everyone else. 9 times out of 10, all it means is that you wrote a similar letter to twenty-five other people, but that you had the funniest name.

4. The Daily Prophet does, from time-to-time, print blatant and ridiculous lies. It may do this for a number of reasons, ranging from Governmental pressure, false information, purposeful misleading, or (on occasions) for the hell of it during a slow news week. The sooner you accept this, the more pain you will be spared.

5. That said, not everything the Prophet prints is a load of dung. I have it on good authority, for example, that they almost always get the date right.

6. The fact that the Daily Prophet doesn't have any real, legitimate competition does in no way affect the quality of newspaper that they publish. The fact that the writers have nothing better to do with their time than undermine the sanity of a fifteen year old boy, isn't at all indicative of this fact being questionable.

7. The Daily Prophet Editor is not in the Ministry's pocket. He is not a mindless pawn of the Bureaucracy, put on this Earth for the sole purpose of serving as a string-less puppet in the political arena or as an insensate drone to sway public opinion. The large bag of galleons on his desk with a return address "Minster of Magic" means nothing.

8. The writer's and journalists employed by the Daily Prophet are intelligent individuals, well-versed in national and international affairs effecting the Wizarding World and it's citizens. The fact that you're more likely to read about Myron Wagtail's new romance with a Puddlemere United player than you are a certain Dark Lord's rising or, indeed, any international matter of importance is completely irrelevant.

9. If, by some miracle, something interesting does manage to happen during the day (like, say for example, a flying car is spotted across the country) then it will be written about, printed and sent to you in record time. This allows for emphatic gesturing to prove a point on the aprt of anyone directly involved with the case. The fact that the Daily Prophet is based in London and that, frankly, the owls would've had to have been moving at light speed to get to Scotland that quick, is inconsequential.

10. Rita Skeeter does not have a stupid name, nor are her glasses comical in any way. And even if they are, you're not allowed to say anything.