Yellow Journalism
Albus Dumbledore had been headmaster for seven years.
He may have only been to seven sorting feasts and six closing feasts as a headmaster, but all the staff meetings in the thirty plus years as first a professor and then as headmaster were starting to grate at his nerves.
As the years passed, the staff meetings were getting especially dry.
Slughorn kept talking about his protégé, a fifth year named Cornelius Fudge.
Who cares? It's not like he'd ever have to deal with him again after graduation.
Hooch kept asking for better school brooms.
Meh, the brooms were fine. They worked quite well in his day, so why wouldn't they work well now?
Regardless, the board would never authorize those kinds of funds.
As far as the board was concerned the only things the school should ever spend more money on was for more teachers, or better potion supplies. There was always old Ursula Black who kept petitioning to acquire a mate for the giant squid; even thirty years after her husband (Phineas Black) died, she still tried to influence the school.
She was very old, and wasn't quite right in the head, so no one really paid her any mind.
Minerva, bless her soul, just wouldn't shut up about this Slytherin first year named Rita Skeeter who wouldn't stop spreading gossip everywhere she went.
Apparently she claimed that she saw a pair of Hufflepuff sixth year boys snogging in some empty corridor.
One of the kids had a marriage contract, and now with this recent bit of gossip the contract was in jeopardy of breach.
Ah, young love.
What he wouldn't give to stick his tongue down Gellert's throat just once...
Sadly his one true love just didn't swing that way.
Nope, Gellert liked innies, not outies.
Gellert wasn't even willing to experiment with polyjuice.
That argument didn't end well... poor little Ariana...
What was going on again? Right, staff meeting.
"Minerva, there will be no need to punish this Rita girl. If these two Puffs have found love together, then who are we to punish her for outing them? Now they can be themselves out in the open. As far as the contract is concerned, it's a win-win. No one should be forced to marry a girl if they find them to be yucky."
"O...kay, that's a very liberal stance – but Albus! They're not even ga--"
"So what's next!"
Nothing was done to stop her.
In her second year she started a rumor that a young Gryffindor first year consistently insulted his friends behind their backs.
The boy was an outcast for the rest of his time at Hogwarts.
Nothing was done to stop her.
In her fifth year, Rita pulled the same stunt from her first year but on a much grander scale.
She said that the Hufflepuff seventh years were all poofters and routinely had orgies in their dorms.
It was a big lie, and that was the point.
Rita had read about the second muggle world war, and learned of Nazi propaganda strategy. The big lie.
The bigger the lie, the harder it is to disbelieve.
The Puff's having gay orgies?
Who would come up with a story that crazy? It must be true.
People believed her.
Nothing was done to stop her.
In her sixth year she became an unregistered animagus.
Her form as a beetle was perfect for her gossip.
Now she didn't even need to lie to get her stories!
Not that she stopped lying or anything. No, she lied more, and interspersed each of her lies with a grain of truth.
With Rita, it became impossible to separate the fact from the fiction.
Nothing was done to stop her.
By the end of her time at Hogwarts, academic rivalry between the houses had turned into genuine hostility.
No one could spot the cause. Everyone was angry at everyone else.
It couldn't have been a few tall tales from one measly Slytherin could it?
In just seven years, Rita Skeeter did more damage to the school than any other witch or wizard had in the past millennium.
Nothing was done to stop her.
In the years following her graduation, she found the perfect career.
A tabloid journalist.
It would be just like school, but with more targets, and a far larger audience.
Instead of a couple hundred students, she could have thousands of people begging for another piece of juicy gossip.
For years she was a perpetual cauldron stirrer.
Every time things looked up, another scandal.
She reported whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, truth be damned.
Her 'big lie' philosophy? It worked best when she had a larger audience.
"Muggle-borns want to take over our world!"
"Hogwarts Headmaster's brother has sex with goats!"
"Lucius Malfoy: Victim, Patriot, Hero."
"Sirius Black: A credit to his family name."
"Peter Pettigrew: The light's martyr."
"Lock up your windows! Werewolves on the loose!"
"The Boy-Who-Lived: He's at school, but why should we care?"
"Dumbledore makes our school unsafe."
"The disgusting habits of muggles!"
"A werewolf teaching our children?! How many have been infected?!"
"The Boy-who-lived: Hero, or Glory-Hound?"
"Why Minister Fudge is such a great leader."
"Lucius Malfoy: How could we have been so wrong?"
"The new ministry will protect us from You-Know-Who."
"The Chosen One: Chosen by who?"
"The life and lies of Albus Dumbledore."
"Muggle-born registration act: It's for their own protection!"
A case could be made that Rita Skeeter did more damage to the wizarding world then You-Know-Who did.
She created a rift between pure-blood and muggle-born witches and wizards that was so wide that someone as vile as Lord Voldemort could recruit followers in droves.
Nothing was done to stop her.
The headmaster refused to lay down the law in his school.
Her editors refused to do basic fact checking.
Her readers, the sheep that called themselves witches and wizards, believed every word she said.
But then again, wizards are stupid.
AN: Thanks again to DemonicNargles for betaing this story.
