Chapter 1417: Public Opinion and Pushback
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The video was very simple.
Two women were talking in a hospital ward. One of them was a short-haired woman in a business suit, and the other was Carly, the female guest.
The short-haired woman said, “Just pretend this never happened. We’ll tell you what to say for the program tomorrow.”
Carly said, “Well… I…”
The short-haired woman said, “This is a contract. You already have the money to arrange an appointment with the doctor for your daughter. You can break the contract, if you’re willing to cover the costs yourself.”
Carrie’s face changed. That doctor was one of the best in America, and an appointment with him cost 200,000 dollars.
As a single mother, her son had just died, and her daughter was still in the hospital. How could she possibly pay for it herself?
After hesitating for a moment, she could only nod. “Okay, but… my daughter is already fine, so this is the only time.”
Satisfied with the answer, the short-haired woman left the room.
Carly returned to the bed. Her daughter looked at her and asked, “What’s wrong, Mom?”
Carly hesitated, but still said, “It’s fine. You’ll be discharged in two days.”
Her daughter was uneasy. “But I’m already fine. When Uncle Batman came, he touched my head and said that I would get better, and my head didn’t hurt anymore.”
Carly struggled to make a sound of agreement. “We’ll wait another two days and get you a checkup to be completely sure.”
The video ended there.
The video which Trish Talk released had all the faces blurred out, but when the video spread online, only the little girl’s face was blurred out.
Trish didn’t directly name Carly, and just said that she was suspected to be the “victim” who came out to denounce Batman some time ago.
Most people who had watched the show remembered Carly. After all, her family had been in a pretty bad situation.
She was a single mother with one dead child and the other seriously injured. Her family had been on the verge of falling apart.
Now that Trish had released this video, the young female reporter a.n.a.lyzed the conversation.
Trish didn’t criticize Carly at all, but focused her attention on the short-haired woman. “Who is this? Why are you coercing a mother in dire straits?”
Trish spoke with frank a.s.surance and was well-received by a lot of fans and audience. However, she herself was also puzzled. Who collected all this information? Why was the webpage so complete?
Unlike most people who just watched the video, when Trish inadvertently accessed a link, she entered a webpage with not only the video but also a lot of relevant information.
For example, there was detailed information on the short-haired woman’s ident.i.ty, the foundation which she took instructions from, its most recent source of funds and so on – it was all on the webpage.
It was as if Trish had discovered treasure.
As someone who had a big sister who was close to being a superhero, and who dreamed of becoming a superhero herself, she had always been a loyal fan of Batman.
If she hadn’t sensed that all this was a targeted attack, she would’ve supported Batman on her show.
Now that this had been dropped into her lap, she started investigating and verifying the information.
The video was authentic, as verified by many bigshots online for free.
Not only did Trish pull some strings, she also personally asked her sister, Jessica Jones, to investigate the foundation. The results were basically the same.
What Trish found strange was that when Jessica heard that this was for the sake of reversing public opinion of Batman, Jessica’s listlessness was nowhere to be found, and she suddenly became a lot more efficient in her work. In just a few days, she finished checking the situation.
When Trish asked Jessica if she was a Batman fan, Jessica got a strange expression on her face. In the end, she simply explained, “I owe him a favor.”
Trish was dumbfounded. She never thought that her own sister would have a connection to the Batman whom she idolized!
What the two of them discussed about Batman was another story.
But Trish Talk was just the first pebble thrown in this “counterattack” in August.
That was right, it was just a pebble.
But at the start of this storm in August, everybody thought it was explosive enough.
The hardcore Batman fans, who had been “attacked” by the five major TV stations and online paid trolls for a month, welcomed this merrily.
This was just how amazing some things were.
Sometimes, just one “point” was needed to destroy an object.
Carly, the female guest who was the first to step out and had left the deepest impression given her situation, played a key role in dismantling this “point.”
Although her son was dead, she was unharmed, and her daughter had completely recovered — the little girl even said that it was Batman who had healed her.
Then, Carly chose to compromise and frame him because of the money.
Some online users immediately pulled up Carly’s performance on the last show, and even a.n.a.lyzed her microexpressions frame by frame.
That was why Carly had been so “unenthusiastic” during her last performance; she had been coerced with the threat of a debt of 200,000 dollars.
The cornerstone of trust had been pulled out, and this wasn’t the only “brick” to fall.
News of more and more “victims” appeared online. Although some parts were censored, it was enough to expose those people’s lies.
But unlike Carly, these “victims” weren’t that simple.
Carly’s situation had been real. It was only because of the pressure of saving her daughter that she had lied.
The video was just enough proof that she had covered up the fact that her daughter had recovered thanks to Batman, but there was no evidence for her previous accusations.
Seeing that she had lost her son back then and her daughter was severely injured, Luke only focused on targeting her most recent lies.
After all, while Angel’s armor was old-fas.h.i.+oned, it still had an A.I. program and a camera.
However, Luke needed Carly as a “lead-in.”
Now that Carly had taken the lead, another group of “victims” was drawn out.
Luke had specially picked “victims” entangled in serious lies.
Some lied about their relations.h.i.+ps, some lied about their family, and some even lied about their ident.i.ties because they were murderers who had changed their names.
There weren’t many of them, only a dozen, but they completely destroyed the public’s “trust” in the five major TV channels.
The news online turned into an uprising which gradually pushed back against the traditional media. Various tabloids and small TV networks had already started to follow the trend, and published these news.
It was big news before that a bunch of mad dogs were biting Batman, and it was big news now that Batman’s hardcore fans were biting back.
Also, wouldn’t this plot twist guarantee viewer ratings?