Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Magic/The Daily Prophet
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| Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter - Magic | |
| The Daily Prophet | |
|---|---|
| Type | Newspaper |
| Features | Official newspaper of the Wizarding world |
| First Appearance | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone |
Contents |
[edit] Overview
The Daily Prophet is the Wizard's authoritative daily newspaper. It is delivered by owl post in the morning, at a cost of (variously) 1 to 5 Knuts per issue. There is mention in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, among other places, of The Evening Prophet, which we presume is an evening edition of the same paper, and elsewhere of The Sunday Prophet which would of course be the weekend edition of the paper.
[edit] Extended Description
The Daily Prophet does tend to publish the Ministry for Magic's official line, rather than anything that would be controversial. Unfortunately, as far as daily papers go, it does seem to be a monopoly, so dissenting views have no way to get published except through tabloids like The Quibbler, which can be more damaging to their message than not publishing at all.
[edit] Analysis
In the early books (up to the end of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), Harry and the Ministry for Magic are relatively closely aligned in their goals; so for the first three books, the Daily Prophet appears to be a simple news-gathering organ, and appears to function quite effectively in that role. The paper starts to be adversarial in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, though there what we seem to be seeing is the uniform nastiness of the single reporter, Rita Skeeter, who seems to be happiest when she is doing a hatchet job on somebody.
It is in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that the paper seems to start diverging from its role as a news gatherer, and verging on propaganda. Harry has discovered an unwelcome truth (Lord Voldemort has returned); Cornelius Fudge, then Minister for Magic, perceives that allowing this news to be disseminated will result in an end to his tenure. The Ministry, according to Rita Skeeter, leans on the Prophet to force it to print stories that would discredit Harry and thus weaken the effects of anything he might say in public.
As is so often the case in public life, when the pendulum swings, it swings rapidly and to the other extreme. At the very end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the cat is let out of the bag when a number of Ministry wizards actually see Voldemort physically in the Ministry offices, so that Fudge can no longer deny his return; by the start of the next book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the Daily Prophet is hailing Harry as The Chosen One who will defeat Voldemort. Again, Ministry influence is strong; they are building Harry up because their own efforts are pretty ineffectual (in the course of the year, apparently there are only about three arrests of suspected Death Eaters, none of whom are confirmed), and the Ministry feels, rightly, that they need a Hero. The Prophet is still acting as the mouthpiece of the administration. Whether it still carries any hard news at all is uncertain; certainly, anything that would discredit the Ministry is not printed.
However, during Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the Daily Prophet changes register again: although it isn't seen many times – Harry reads Dumbledore's elegy, written by Elphias Doge, and several excerpts from Dumbledore's biography written by Rita Skeeter – it is mentioned on various occasions that the newspaper is siding with the Voldemort-controlled Ministry, and actually printing stories that show Harry and his friends in a bad side. When Remus Lupin appears at Grimmauld Place after the wedding, for instance, he shows the Trio an issue in which it is mentioned that Harry is wanted so that he can be questioned about Dumbledore's death.
