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Earlier this week, a man being held hostage within the office of a local newspaper was forced to communicate with the outside world via op-eds.
“There Should Be More Random Police Checks Of Office Buildings,” read the title of one recent opinion by George Dranforth, who curiously had not returned home in several days. “Our law enforcement officers should take into account the hypothetical possibility of intruders taking over the workplace of, say, a local newspaper office and holding the writers for ransom.”
“If the city heeds this reasonable request, I propose that they start with a sweep of one of the buildings on the southwest side of town, just north of the river and east of the old Quiznos,” continued Dranforth, typing painstakingly while handcuffed to an office chair. “Although of course such a search may not yield much, I suspect that looking in the back conference room on the fourth floor would be a good place to check. And maybe they could also bring some food and water with them.”
“Newspaper Staff And Organized Crime Would Be Great Friends If We Just Got To Know Each Other Better,” wrote Dranforth as his captors cut up newspapers into individual letters with which to spell out their demands. “If gangsters who seek profit by holding reporters hostage could just get to know the reporters better and find out that they have families that care about them and lives outside of this office building, the hostage-takers might see that they might actually have a lot in common with those reporters, like a desire to live or to have bodily sustenance for the first time in over 24 hours."
At press time, the captors found out there was no money in journalism.
