News will become more entertaining and less scathing; its aura of information could overshadow probing investigations. It may hurt people in power but not damage them for life. ‘Out-of-media settlements’ will trend on Twitter. Journalists will remain free (even as social media forgets the difference between freedom and fact) but increasingly vulnerable to subversion. We will reflexively learn to look over our shoulders, bite our lips and edit damning lines before they get us summoned to the editor’s cabin. Employment letters will become smarter contracts convincing us to loan our skills as ‘consultants’, another word for potted plants on media windowsills. Our illusion that not writing on coal will keep us out of trouble will be shattered as glycerine soaps could get included in the list of ‘let’s leave it’ stories. Consumers may need readership diets to escape the gluttony of empty-calorie ‘exclusives’ and breaking news will become another word for daybreak and nightfall.