Fake News/Ubik

Philip K. Dick wrote in 1969:

Still in gay pinstripe clown-style pajamas, Joe Chip hazily seated himself at his kitchen table, lit a cigarette and, after inserting a dime, twiddled the dial of his recently rented 'pape machine.  Having a hangover, he dialed off interplan news, hovered momentarily at domestic news and then selected gossip.

"Yes sir," the 'pape machine said heartily.  "Gossip.  Guess what Stanton Mick, the reclusive interplanetarily known speculator and financier, is up to at this very moment."  Its works whizzed and a scroll of printed matter crept from its slot; the ejected roll, a document in four colors, niftily incised with bold type, rolled across the surface of the neo-teakwood table and bounced to the floor.  His head aching, Chip retrieved it, spread it out flat before him.

MICK HITS WORLD BANK FOR TWO TRIL

(AP) London.  What could Stanton Mick, the reclusive, interplanitarily known speculator  and financier be up to? the business community asked itself as rumor leaked out of Whitehall that the dashing but peculiar industrial magnate, who once offered to build free of charge a fleet by which Israel could  colonize and make fertile otherwise desert areas of Mars, had asked for and may possibly receive a staggering and unprecedented loan of

"This isn't gossip," Joe Chip said to the 'pape machine.  "This is speculation about fiscal transactions.  Today I want to read about which TV star is sleeping with whose drug-addicted wife."  He had as usual not slept well, at least in terms of REM - rapid eye movement - sleep.  And he had resisted taking a soporific because, very unfortunately, his week's supply of stimulants, provided him by the autonomic pharmacy of his conapt building, had run out - due, admittedly, to his own oral greed, but nevertheless gone.  By law, he could not approach the pharmacy for more until next Tuesday.  Two days away, two long days.

The 'pape machine said, "Set the dial for low gossip."

He did so and on a second scroll, excreted by the 'pape machine without delay, emerged; he zommed in on an excellent caricature drawing of Lola Herzburg-Wright, licking his lips with satisfaction at the naughty exposure of her entire right ear, then feasted on the text.

Accosted by a cutpurse in a fancy N.Y. after hours mowl the other night, LOLA HERZBURG-WRIGHT bounced a swift right jab of the chops of the do-badder which sent him reeling onto the table where KING OGON GROAT OF SWEDEN and an unidentified miss with astonighingly large...