04/08/2025
Shots Fired:
The Betoota Advocate, widely credited for being the last paper in Australia with a budget big enough to keep its journalists fueled by high-grade co***ne, has officially crossed a line.
No longer content with churning out their usual clickbait about Bob Katter, crocodiles, and Year 12 kids spewing on the Gold Coast, they've now taken aim at Orange- our beloved city of apple orchards and existential regional confusion.
Sure, we can take the jokes about gentrification, wine snobbery, and the fact we have four cafes for every man, woman and Labradoodle. But being called hicks by Queenslanders? That’s a bridge too far.
“I was at Bill’s Beans ordering my almond milk dirty chai when I saw the headline,” says co-editor Susie. “I nearly spat it through the tooth gap I’ve been waitlisted at CSU Dental to get fixed. We’ve got wineries, artisan coffee, and car fires that double as cultural statements and heat sources. I mean, I bought my f***ing couch cushions from the white place!”
(Notably, the couch beneath them was financed at Harvey Norman on a 30-month interest-free plan, which somehow still charges her $0.13 interest per month- a mystery baffling Susie, sales rep Carol, and the ACCC.)
“And yeah,” she admits, “the Orange Daily Weekly Monthly News is on a bit of a sabbatical. But that doesn’t mean interstate publications get free rein to write slander. We’re only off work because we’re currently winning another regional title: highest under-50s cancer rate, thanks to decades of toxic gardening chemicals and a casually leaking tailings dam at the mine.”
Speaking from her chair at the Orange Base Hospital cancer care centre, Susie offers a final warning: “Once my oncologist nails the radiation dose and I either enter remission or turn into Deadpool, it’s over for you QLD f***ers.”
