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[alt_lee]

So here’s the thing. The radio folks at Aldrich have been talking to the handful of women who ended up there, and they’ve got it in their heads to do this big reporting thing talking about the device and what happened, and how horrible it was. Not just brief news, but something way bigger, more involved, I guess.

Only, um, yeah. Do we want that?

They’ve been talking about it for days, I guess, and when I turned up this morning, they grabbed me and basically said they were going to, and they were just telling me as a courtesy.

Mrs Longbottom, I asked them to wait, please, because, I didn’t know if that was a good idea, and I couldn’t think through all the bits on the spot. And I said I’d tell you all today, and we’d get back to them this week with whatever thoughts we had.

(The women there seem to think talking about it would help, but they’re sort of not really clear about it? And I’m not sure if all of them think the same way, too, but I couldn’t figure out how to ask, and they’re still pretty wary of men and wizards, and I’m both, so. Maybe someone else needs to talk to them.)

I can probably get out there Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning, depending on work, or can tell you who to talk to if some other time’s better. Or someone else is.

Comments

[alt_alice]

My first impulse is to have them hold off, and focus that energy on other stories that might have less of a security risk. They might talk about what the Night Watch people do, for instance, or tell stories that highlight division and instability in the council, or draw attention to some of their actions that could be found objectionable?

I do agree that everyday people might find great value in seeing behind the curtain from time to time, and that the role of this radio station might be to pull it back for us, but we'd be better off keeping this particular curtain tightly shut.

[alt_lee]

Someone other than me might need to point that out then. I mean, they all seem to like me okay, but they think I'm just a kid who's good with radios a lot.

Giving them some other topics instead might help. Especially if there's someone they can get specifics from. I think that's why they got so interested in the women and the device.

[alt_alice]

Yes. We're rather good when it comes to informants in the camps, but they must censor those reports carefully, and I can see how they'd want more material from outside the camps as well.

We can help provide some of that, but I'm wondering if we might talk to Ridley too. I'm sure there'd be quite a few limitations -- she'd want to control the flow of information, and wouldn't want her sources compromised -- but she might see the value in letting some information be widely known, especially if it hurts some reputations in the process. Sam Fawcett's group might also be able to feed them things from time to time.

[alt_sally_anne]

I think Mrs Longbottom is right that there are way too many people who will try to work out how Strangweale did it, if they know it's possible. And not even just with muggleborns. Muggleborns the right age are mostly at Moddey at this point. So someone who's evil enough to want to do this might kidnap a stranger's child. Or try it on a muggle child. (Which I guess would also involve kidnapping a stranger's child...) Or try their own breeding farm, because you know they wouldn't need a witch to cooperate they could get some poor muggle woman and those babies would be half-bloods.

Now... maybe they could be a little vague about what he was doing with them? Because if people knew that someone in the Department of Mysteries was using magical babies in Dark Arts and was forcing muggleborns to breed so he could murder the babies, that might bother people, even without the details. Some people would be bothered because he was murdering babies, others would be bothered because he was breeding muggleborns.

[alt_sally_anne]

Anyway, other topics, yeah.

Do we have any way of what's happening in other parts of the world? Could they tell people about THAT? Because some people would probably find that interesting.

If muggles are going to listen from the camps we could have our contacts smuggle out personal letters. I mean you know how my mum STILL doesn't know if any of her siblings are alive? There are probably loads of muggles who have family who might be in another camp, and they don't have any way to write to them. If we could let people give their messages, short messages, to someone at the camp who could give them to us, we could read them on the air. Let people know their family members were alive. Once people started listening they could probably do nothing but read those letters all day every day and they'd never run out.

[alt_alice]

I like the idea of catching up on international events.

I just had a thought -- would it raise any red flags if some of the packing for the more delicate objects shipped to Laszlo's were to be wrapped in newspaper? We might get quite a bit of news we can pass along that way, and even if was shredded, it's not that difficult to piece back together.