"Hey Zoe, how are you? I need to ask you something."
Zoe's face appeared on Alex's phone.
"What do you need?"
"I want to know how to publish articles and how to get money from them."
"Ok, I have a blog post about it. I can forward it to you."
Zoe was for few moments more focused on her phone than on the conversation.
"Here it is. The post explains how to set it up for small articles.
For bigger ones, you need to set up things a bit more, but that's probably not your case."
Alex already opened the post and was looking at crucial steps. She almost didn't pay attention.
"It doesn't look very hard."
"Yes, it's easy. It takes me just a few minutes to set up every time."
"Thank you very much, bye."
"No problem, bye."
Zoe's face disappeared.
Alex listened to her recording three times.
Then she opened her editor and started:
"I was walking on the street when I've seen Robert Wheeler."
Another sentence should follow, but Alex was sitting and thinking how to continue.
She had no idea, so she decided to erase the line and listen to the conversation few more times.
Alex changed her approach. She wrote a list of possible styles of the article. Then, she eliminated the worst of them: She crossed the tabloid-style and, with some considerations, she decided against a personal style. She didn't want to disclose anything that might reveal her. Leaking intel from a secret meeting might make a lot of people angry. She hoped to stay insignificant to them.
Finally, two possible forms of the article remained. One was just a summary. The second was an in-depth analysis of the political situation and all implications. Having a clear plan, Alex got to work, first, on the detailed article.
First, Alex mentioned how Robert's party doesn't care about people and how it makes lives worse for everyone. Then she described what was clear from the recording: Robert is selling compromising material on his boss to an opposition party. He gets not only money, but he will negotiate a deal with the opposition party about regulations for part-time workers and real estate taxes. He hopes that after the scandal, he can become the chairman of his weakened party.
Alex ended the article with a prognosis of upcoming elections. She gave a few percentage points to her favorite party and subtracted a lot from Robert's. Then she went to sleep with a plan to proofread the article in the morning.
In the morning, Alex created an anonymous account on the social. She was not sure it was completely secure, but she left nothing to chance. She even set up some additional protections against revealing her identity.
Alex proofread the detailed article and made it ready. In the social, she added two ads. She might get some money from that. Then she pinned the timestamp for the article. At least people will know she predicted everything. She posted it. She felt like this is a big moment, but afterward, nothing happened. No one viewed the article yet.
Alex quickly made the short article and referenced the long one. She posted it with similar settings.
Alex would be happy if people would share the article organically, but revealing the secret might stop the whole transaction. So she decided not to promote it.
In the next two days, Alex followed many news channels. She did almost nothing else. There was no mention of Robert Wheeler. Also, her post didn't get any attention.
Third day, while she was eating dinner, talking to Manta, and checking her phone, the ping came.
"Chairman Caroline Derstler implied in a corruption scandal." Read the title.
Alex just run to her room to check the video.
"Leaked video of a secret meeting shows Caroline Derstler asking for a bribe."
There was Caroline's stock footage giving a speech.
"We are still waiting for the video to be proven true,
but PPPS already called an emergency press conference this evening.
Here is the video."
Then the video came. It was nothing fancy.
You could see Caroline among some businessmen.
From her talk, it was clear that she is asking for the bribe.
After Alex watched the video, her phone had a lot of notifications for her. Different sources were reporting on the scandal or commenting on it.
Alex checked her post, but nothing so far.
So, she got back to the live feed of the catastrophe.
There was a lot of talking. Also, Robert Wheeler appeared:
"I'm certain that the video is fake. I know Caroline for a long time.
She always worked hard to fulfill her duties as a politician."
A lot of politicians from PPPS spoke.
It seemed that Robert was defending Caroline more than average.
But she did not appear herself.
Politicians from other parties were not so kind.
The opposition was screaming for her resignation.
Coalition partners were ensuring their voters that the incident will not go unexamined.
The PPPS's press conference did not say anything new. It tried to ensure voters that PPPS still protects their interests. Caroline wasn't there. Alex even looked up some conspiracy theories about Caroline. She found nothing useful.
The stream of news started to nauseate Alex, so she watched the trending show for two hours. Afterward, it seemed that she did not miss anything. Media noticed Caroline's absence too. Some PPPS politicians were saying that she is on a short scheduled vacation. Alex decided that nothing interesting will happen tonight and went to sleep.
In the morning, she checked her post: no new views.
The feed algorithm decided that in the flood of articles about Caroline's scandal nobody want to see hers.
Also, the fuzz about the scandal seemed to wane a bit.
"Maybe I can help my article."
She selected a channel that was a bit smaller and close to her politically.
She log on to her anonymous account and wrote a simple message:
"I published this three days ago. Robert Wheeler is behind the Caroline scandal."
And she added the link to her article, but no signature nor greeting.
"Hopefully, someone will see it."
She was still logged on in the anonymous account and was nervously refreshing the page.
After thirty minutes, a message appeared:
"Interesting, I'll squeeze it in, watch in an hour."
Alex relaxed a bit. At least some people will see my article.
She realized that she hadn't eaten the whole morning and she is starving.
She used the hour to get herself a big breakfast.
After breakfast, the video was out. It was pretty short.
The headline read: "PPPS infighting."
She pushed play:
"You are familiar with the mess Caroline Derstler is in."
"It might go a bit deeper.
There is a recording that shows Robert Wheeler orchestrated the scandal."
Man in a red blazer and bleached hair sat in a virtual studio.
He tried to look serious, shuffled his papers, and continued.
"In the recording, Robert sells the information about Caroline for a lot of money
and political compromise."
"We cannot play the recording here, but you can head to the link and listen to it themselves."
Alex's heart almost stopped.
"Great, that means they will read my article."
And there was the link.
Alex checked the count number 397, not bad.
There were some comments, and some people already started sharing.
She decided not to reply to any of them. She just liked some that praised her.
Alex was excited, but there was nothing to do. She read all comments and seen all news. So she just refreshed the page over and over. She examined every inch of statistics available about her page. How many people have seen the post? 537, not bad. How long they stayed? Three minutes on average, it could be better.
At one, there was a virtual press conference of PPPS. Alex watched it. They said nothing new, except Robert Wheeler, who announced that if Caroline resigns, he is ready to renegotiate the deal about real estate taxes and part-time workers. But Alex already knew this.
Then there were questions, nothing out of the ordinary.
But at the end, a deep voice asked:
"This one is for Robert Wheeler. Have you released the recording to destroy Caroline Derstler?"
Alex was stunned. She hoped for something like this.
Robert seemed to hesitate, and then he said shortly:
"Of course not, next question."
The man defended himself.
"But the article..."
He was silenced.
In half an hour, everyone at least mentioned her article. There were a lot of opinions. Some of them were against her. Skeptical PPPS channel said that it's easy to forge a conversation. But others were more supportive. They doubted the recording too, but the fact that it predicted the scandal confirmed the truth.
In the evening, the news mentioned her article often. They were trying to get Robert's reaction. Alex was excited the whole day, devouring everything. The count got close to 900000. She wouldn't have guessed that it would be so popular. But now, she was hoping that a million people would see it.
When she examined the article's metrics, she noticed a graph with CPV spiked high. She learned that CPV was cost per view, and it was good that it was high. She looked at the advertisers. There were a lot of political parties trying to insert their message next to her article. It seemed they were bidding against each other.
Alex was tired of watching the news. She even postponed her's next day shift, so she would be able to sleep more. She didn't feel like working.
Early in the morning, while Alex was sleeping, the situation moved again. Caroline Derstler was found dead in her apartment.
The cycle started again: breaking news, fast opinions, in-depth analysis, press conferences. Now, it was interesting worldwide. Not only locally. And a lot of people investigated by themselves. When Alex woke up, her article was read by over two million.