Meanwhile, the New Firm ( Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip, a duo of criminals) arrive in the city. They have kidnapped a Vetinari lookalike named Charlie, and are charged by the 'Committee to Unelect the Patrician' to frame Vetinari for a murder. They plan to use Charlie to frame the Patrician for attempting to run away with stolen gold, but this nearly fails due to the Patrician's Assassin skills. They improvise by stabbing Drumknott and pushing Charlie into the hallway to 'confess'. William de Worde has never really considered that his monthly newsletters would garner much interest outside his regular patrons (mainly foreign political figures), yet when he starts publishing on a daily basis in Ankh-Morpork he gets the surprise of his life. Goodmountain says in regard to getting the printing press from the Inquirer, "Let's just do it" a reference to Nike's famous slogan "Just do it!"

Soon we have a "serious" newspaper like The Times competing with a scandal rag, The Inquirer. Funny stuff. We've always looked beyond the walls for the invaders,' he said. 'We always thought change came from outside, usually on the point of a sword. And then we look around and find that it comes from the inside of the head of someone you wouldn't notice in the street. In certain circumstances it may be convenient to remove the head, but there seem to be such a lot of them these days.'The headline for the newspaper "The Truth Shall Make Ye Free" is from the bible - John 8:32: "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Sacharissa is dismissive of the motto saying, "I think its just a quote." Later on as things get more complex a type setting error changes this line to "The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret" and still later it becomes "The Truth Shall Make Ye Fred". William de Worde, a ne'er do well noble who is ashamed of his noble heritage, has until now made his living by painstakingly collecting news and sending off a sort of newsletter to foreign peoples of import who are willing to pay him for it. Then some dwarfs roll into Ankh-Morpork with something called a printing press, and suddenly, what if they printed a bunch of them and sold them for like, fifty cents? And maybe hired some people to sell them? And maybe pay some people to tell them things that are going on in town? Like bake sales and fires and robberies and whatnot.

The Committee to Un-elect the Patrician is a clear parody of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, although Vetinari is not elected Terry often talked about “doing” his autobiography. In the years before he was ill, he talked about it almost exclusively to dismiss the idea. He didn’t seem persuaded that there was anything in the story of the journey that took a kid from a council house in Beaconsfield to a knighthood and a mansion near Salisbury by the sheer power of his imagination alone; or in the tale of how a boy with, as Terry put it, “a mouthful of speech impediments” became one of his generation’s most popular communicators; or how someone who left school with five O-levels could also go on to have an honorary professorship at Trinity College Dublin. And besides, there were always other things waiting to be written – bigger stories in which far more outlandish and arresting things were free to happen. I thought maybe a maypole,” said Mr. Tulip reflectively. “An’ then a display of country dancing, land tillage under the three-field system, several plagues, and if my –ing hand ain’t too tired the invention of the –ing horse collar” Here’s the former press officer of the Central Electricity Generating Board, South Western Region, with his name in lights – Terry Pratchett at the peak of his powers. Vetinari: "Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.”

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The opening line regarding rumour spreading like wild fire particularly since Ankh-Morpork had discovered fire insurance is a reference to the Colour of Magic when TwoFlower sells insurance to the owner of the Broken Drum only to have him set fire to the whole city in an attempt to collect on the policy. Later on when there is a fire, Pratchett points out the the Ankh-Morporkians were averse to Fire Brigades because they figured that if they were being paid to put out fires this would give them an incentive to start them. In the early days of Fire Brigades, this was in fact the case. Pratchett plays with the concept of reincarnation with the fates of Tulip and Pin. Tulip is condemned by Death to watch the deaths of his various victims for "eternity" and becomes a wood worm, one type of which is the "Death Watch beetle". Pin, who believes the "religious symbol potato" will save him from hell is reincarnated as a potato shaped like his face and is then fried. The denizens of Ankh-Morpork fancy they've seen just about everything. But then comes the Ankh-Morpork Times, struggling scribe William de Worde's upper-crust newsletter turned Discworld's first paper of record.

Rhianna, Terry and Lyn Pratchett, dressed for a stage adaptation of Maskerade in 1995. Photograph: Penguin

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It's a big news week: the most powerful man in the city has been arrested, leaving Ankh-Morpork without a leader. And a dangerous criminal organisation will do anything to control the story... The sequence involving a class of magic students at the Conjurers Guild below de Worde's office is a direct pastiche of one of British comedic magician Tommy Cooper's routines.