My Marker-Award Winning Expose
In 2012, I began to see how easily people could be manipulated by corporate pressure. My classmates graduated and were forced to choose between their personal integrity and writing pieces that were convenient for the public to hear. Things like how rough everything is in the middle east and how the oil industry is evil are sentiments wide audiences crave. And my friends wrote about these things.
Not me.
I wanted to bring a level of personal accountability to investigative reporting.
In 2103, I began work on a shocking expose of the oil industry which I betitled Oil. When I finished Oil, I immediately realized how powerful it was. How emotionally heart-sobbing. So I entered it in the Marker Awards.
Oil was realized immediately to be the greatest expose of our time, and for its greatness (and, transitively, my greatness), I was given a Marker Award. Now for the first time, you can read Oil here and experience the most spectacular investigative journalism of our era.
Not me.
I wanted to bring a level of personal accountability to investigative reporting.
In 2103, I began work on a shocking expose of the oil industry which I betitled Oil. When I finished Oil, I immediately realized how powerful it was. How emotionally heart-sobbing. So I entered it in the Marker Awards.
Oil was realized immediately to be the greatest expose of our time, and for its greatness (and, transitively, my greatness), I was given a Marker Award. Now for the first time, you can read Oil here and experience the most spectacular investigative journalism of our era.
Oil
by Dennis B. Ranford
April 20, 2013
Oil companies frequently are brushed off as liars, cheats, and environmental demons. However, how many of us have stopped to wonder if they really are? How many of us have thought to be honest?
The following is the deeply personal transcript of my experience with a CEO (who has asked to remain nameless) of an oil company (which has been told to keep its mouth shut by the dirty lying media). In the ensuing dialogue, I will be DBR and the CEO will be CEO.
DBR: Thank you for agreeing to interview with me today.
CEO: I would say you're welcome, except my corporation might be listening in and expecting me to be super upset that the media is prying into our super-secret oil company business.
DBR: Well, then I would say I'm welcome except I hate corporate sell-outs because I have integrity.
CEO: Now I'm going to tell you about how my corporation is conspiring to kill planet Earth.
DBR: That sounds super important and deserving of a Marker Award.
CEO: A what?
DBR: A Marker Award? It's very prestigious.
CEO: Wow. Good for you. I wish I could win a Marker Award, except I'm a soulless head of a faceless corporation but I probably can't win one, can I?
DBR: No. You have to have a face to win a Marker Award so they can put a picture of you on their website.
CEO: Please don't ask any questions about how my corporation is going to destroy planet Earth. Wait, did I already tell you we're conspiring to destroy planet Earth?
DBR: I kinda figured that out for myself. I used to be a cop.
CEO: Oh, really?
DBR: Yeah. Back when I was in second grade, I solved two murders.
CEO: Really?
DBR: Yeah. Yeah... yep... yesh.
CEO: Well, you'll never take me alive!
At this moment, the CEO leaped towards a window and tried to run, but you can't run from the truth and not being a corporate sell-out, so I shot him in the leg with my trusty paintball gun which I keep in between my underwear and slacks. He fell down and I sauntered up to him like I would if I were in a Western.
DBR: Looks like you've got a date with honesty. And it's gonna get ugly. Like, Zac Efron ugly.
CEO: Fine. I guess I can't run from the truth. I run an oil company and we are conspiring to destroy planet Earth.
DBR: Why are you telling me all this?
CEO: Because now I am going to kill you.
Suddenly, all the animals from the BP Oil spill showed up, and I realized that BP had spilled the oil on purpose so they could create an army of mutant animals, like mutant sea gulls, which are, like, twice as annoying as regular seagulls even, so that sucked. I knew I had to get out of there, so I jumped out the window and wrote this expose. I knew I would have to conceal my identity, so I went out and bought a scarf to hide behind. Now I would just have to be the Man Behind the Scarf.
It was six months later and I was hiding out in the park. A girl came up to me.
Girl: Why are you wearing a scarf?
DBR: Because I can't let the world see my face.
Girl: That must be really hard.
DBR: You don't understand me!
Girl: No, Dennis. I do.
Then she ripped off her face. I was expecting it to be all bloody and gross like the inside of a face usually is, but it wasn't. There was just another face under her first face. And it was my face, just older like it would be if I'd traveled back from the future which I'd just traveled to in the first place to get a better scarf that looked like somebody else's face.
Then I hurried really fast to the future so I could get the better scarf and go back in time and interact with myself.
I did all that. Then I went back in time further. To 2008. I had to stop that oil spill from ever happening. Then I got older and it became 2013 and I published this expose. How do I know so much about Dennis B. Ranford? Well. I am Dennis B. Ranford.
The end.
by Dennis B. Ranford
April 20, 2013
Oil companies frequently are brushed off as liars, cheats, and environmental demons. However, how many of us have stopped to wonder if they really are? How many of us have thought to be honest?
The following is the deeply personal transcript of my experience with a CEO (who has asked to remain nameless) of an oil company (which has been told to keep its mouth shut by the dirty lying media). In the ensuing dialogue, I will be DBR and the CEO will be CEO.
DBR: Thank you for agreeing to interview with me today.
CEO: I would say you're welcome, except my corporation might be listening in and expecting me to be super upset that the media is prying into our super-secret oil company business.
DBR: Well, then I would say I'm welcome except I hate corporate sell-outs because I have integrity.
CEO: Now I'm going to tell you about how my corporation is conspiring to kill planet Earth.
DBR: That sounds super important and deserving of a Marker Award.
CEO: A what?
DBR: A Marker Award? It's very prestigious.
CEO: Wow. Good for you. I wish I could win a Marker Award, except I'm a soulless head of a faceless corporation but I probably can't win one, can I?
DBR: No. You have to have a face to win a Marker Award so they can put a picture of you on their website.
CEO: Please don't ask any questions about how my corporation is going to destroy planet Earth. Wait, did I already tell you we're conspiring to destroy planet Earth?
DBR: I kinda figured that out for myself. I used to be a cop.
CEO: Oh, really?
DBR: Yeah. Back when I was in second grade, I solved two murders.
CEO: Really?
DBR: Yeah. Yeah... yep... yesh.
CEO: Well, you'll never take me alive!
At this moment, the CEO leaped towards a window and tried to run, but you can't run from the truth and not being a corporate sell-out, so I shot him in the leg with my trusty paintball gun which I keep in between my underwear and slacks. He fell down and I sauntered up to him like I would if I were in a Western.
DBR: Looks like you've got a date with honesty. And it's gonna get ugly. Like, Zac Efron ugly.
CEO: Fine. I guess I can't run from the truth. I run an oil company and we are conspiring to destroy planet Earth.
DBR: Why are you telling me all this?
CEO: Because now I am going to kill you.
Suddenly, all the animals from the BP Oil spill showed up, and I realized that BP had spilled the oil on purpose so they could create an army of mutant animals, like mutant sea gulls, which are, like, twice as annoying as regular seagulls even, so that sucked. I knew I had to get out of there, so I jumped out the window and wrote this expose. I knew I would have to conceal my identity, so I went out and bought a scarf to hide behind. Now I would just have to be the Man Behind the Scarf.
It was six months later and I was hiding out in the park. A girl came up to me.
Girl: Why are you wearing a scarf?
DBR: Because I can't let the world see my face.
Girl: That must be really hard.
DBR: You don't understand me!
Girl: No, Dennis. I do.
Then she ripped off her face. I was expecting it to be all bloody and gross like the inside of a face usually is, but it wasn't. There was just another face under her first face. And it was my face, just older like it would be if I'd traveled back from the future which I'd just traveled to in the first place to get a better scarf that looked like somebody else's face.
Then I hurried really fast to the future so I could get the better scarf and go back in time and interact with myself.
I did all that. Then I went back in time further. To 2008. I had to stop that oil spill from ever happening. Then I got older and it became 2013 and I published this expose. How do I know so much about Dennis B. Ranford? Well. I am Dennis B. Ranford.
The end.