A Job I was Offered

Many years ago while I was trying to make my reputation, I received an odd call from a major player in the tabloid business. The reporter, who actually worked for the foreign branch, wanted to know if he brought me a picture of a Tarot Reading, could I interpret it. I told him if I was familiar with deck or if it was based on the Rider deck and I knew the spread, I could do it.
Apparently I was the last psychic in the phone book he called and all the others had begun giving him a run around that ended with, no. In other words, though they advertised themselves as card readers, they couldn't read cards.
Well, he arrived with the blown up picture of the reading that was obviously taken from some distance away through a window. If you are famous, I suggest you not get a tarot reading in front of a window. The reader had to be in on it. It was too perfectly staged.
I had no trouble reading the cards for him though I had never seen the deck. I managed to purchase the deck 10 years later from a reader in England on Ebay because it was so beautiful..
Anyway, we got to talking because getting a spot in the upcoming predictions section would have made my career. He said: "You really don't want that." So naturally I asked why and he responded with, "Have you ever seen any of those predictions come true?"
Well, now that he mentioned it, no. The short version is that a dear friend of mine actually sold him a list of the worst, craziest, most publicity hungry psychics in the country who were greedy enough to jump on the bandwagon and each year they took the most outlandish predictions these people made (Princess Di having Alien Baby) and published them. If a prediction actually looked halfway decent, it hit the garbage can. Then they sat back and waited for the letters praising these predictions and the psychics that made them. It was their holiday entertainment. He did, however, say that if he ever wanted to know was really going to happen, he would call me.
Imagine my shock when reporters for huge national newspapers began calling and they even had people's birth dates, places and times for me. I never got a bit of credit except from the local newspapers. The last few calls I fielded were disturbing. One was about Princess Di and I asked the reporter to not ask me anything more about her. He said, "is what we all fear about to happen?" My answer was; yes. She was dead a month later. So, people knew what was coming and their information didn't come from psychics like me.
So, don't think the news media doesn't use us, because they do. Don't think they don't know they are publishing straight crap, because they do.
The tabloids were the teething ground for the the shock jocks who evolved into FAUX news. They learned exactly how to manipulate public opinion, what worked and what didn't and who worked and who didn't. They learned what blatant lies were easily swallowed and how to frame them to make them slide down so much easier. I have no doubt they use people with my talent to vet the lies and predict which ones you will believe. You don't stand a chance.