A little girl asked sweetly
So many years ago
"If I read it in the paper, dad
Is it really so?"
Her father looked adoring
Or the innocence of youth
“The papers have one job, my dear;
And that’s to tell the truth.”
And so she wrote the editor
A fellow much maligned
And posed to him a question
That was pressing on her mind
He wrote with art and eloquence
The man was such a prince
And the papers, in my judgement
Have been lying ever since
They lie to spare our feelings
They lie to agitate
They lie because they want the clicks
And all their lies are bait
The scoop is in the headline
And man, it earns them plenty
And when they stand corrected
The retraction’s on page twenty
So if some older editor says
“Hey, let’s hold our horses”
They look at him and say
“We don’t need no stinkin’ sources
The New York Times is sinking
This rat is going to leave it
If they told me there’s a Santa
Alas, I‘d not believe it.