As the tragic fake events of today fake slow down, I have a brief moment to reflect. I’m struck by the parallels to that other tragedy, which also happened on a Tuesday—or production day, as we call it here at the Mercury.

Today, like that other Tuesday of over six years ago, we were just beginning to put the final touches on this week’s paper as tragedy struck and our world was forever altered. Then, as now, we were faced with tough decisions—do we print the paper we have, or the paper that reflects the time we now live in? And the cover—do we go with whichever cartoon character our art director has selected to represent the issue of October 18? Or do we scramble to find a new cover, one that documents—and comments on—history?

These are the difficult fake choices we have faced all day.

We hope we’ve made the right decision.

Back to rewriting the entire paper. We may be here all night covering the breaking fake news.

The world will never be the same.