The Sausage Dog Today (6)

The new edition of The Sausage Dog Today arrived and the three journalists gathered round.

"Druggie Dog Cheat" ran the headline. The rest of the story explained how the winner of the high jump gold medal in the Doggie Olympics had been caught cheating, taking performance enhancing drugs. 

"Like, she's so fallen for it," said David laughing.

"Yes," said Ellie. "She'll never get away with printing this, it'll ruin her. Viscount Malais is a notorious court botherer, he's always taking people to court on any reason, He's bound to sue for libel and he has top lawyers."

"I thought Julie would know better," said Tony. "This is such a scandalous story I never thought she'd take me at my word and publish it without checking."

"Well we can stop worrying about The Sausage Dog Today, it'll never survive a scandal like this."

To understand the above incident, we need to go back in time, to when Ellie, David and Tony had just discovered that the new rival Sausage Dog Magazine, The Sausage Dog Today, had been stealing their story ideas.

"We should plant a fake story on them," Ellie had said in anger. 

"A fake story?" Said Tony.

"Julie's pinching all of our ideas when you tell her what's in our next issue. Not just pinching them, deliberately going one better. If you tell her you've found a really great scoop, she'll publish it. It's our chance to get her into real trouble. 

And so the three journalists concocted a story about the sausage dog Olympic champion, and Tony told Julie from the Sausage Dog Today about their great scoop.

The three journalists were still looking at the magazine when the doorbell rang.

Tony answered the door, and was astonished to see Julie.

"I thought you'd want to see the new magazine," she said, holding up a copy.

"Ours' has just arrived," said Tony. 

"This is the real magazine," Julie said. "I had that one made up especially for you."

"You mean this isn't the real magazine?"

"Oh course it isn't. Do you think I'm an idiot, I was hardly going to publish a story that would ruin me. You can't just make up stories about sausage dogs doing drugs without evidence to back it up."

"I see," said Tony. "So you're here to gloat that you saw through our ruse."

"Actually I'm here to call a truce," she said.

"A truce," said Tony. "You deceived me for months, you've been stealing and stories and then going one better, to make us look foolish."

"And if I'd published your fake story I'd have been ruined, dragged through the courts, bankrupted, my reputation destroyed."

"But you ripped us off for months."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have treated you that way Tony. It's just difficult launching a new magazine, I wanted to get an edge on you."

"Yeah, your edge could have finished us," said Ella. "We worked hard developing those stories, and you stole them."

"I'm sorry," said Julie. "I shouldn't have done that. Which is why I want to make it up to you."

"What are you suggesting, like?" said David.

"A truce. But not just a truce, we work together, pool resources, cut costs - share marketing, pool contact lists."

"So we help you get off the ground?" said Ella

"We're already off the ground, higher than you in sales at the moment. But neither magazine has to fold, if we work cleverly both magazines can flourish."

"We're still going to be competing though, we're both sausage dog magazines, we're selling to the same audience."

"I've thought about that. We'll move our publication back two weeks, still monthly, that way we won't be competing for sales on the same day. We can share the same market, we can help each other out, plug each other's magazines, give discounts to each other's readers."

"How can we trust you?" said Tony. "You've a history of stealing our ideas."

"Frodo."

"Frodo?" said David. 

"The moon dog. I know his handler. We're about to start publishing his diary as he prepares for his trip to the moon. I'm willing to share it with you, it will alternate between the two magazines. That way readers that want to follow the moon dog will have to read both magazines."

"It's a nice offer," said Tony. "But how can we be sure you'll deliver."

"We'll do a contract and put a piece in the magazine, stating that it will run across both magazines."

"Why would you share your biggest coup," said Ella. 

"Because of Tony."

"Me?" said Tony. 

"No, my Tony. He's finally met someone. I need to reach out to you for his sake. Do you want to go for a walk later."

"Okay," said Tony. "I suppose it's what Beryle would want."