The Truth recap

When a band of dwarf printers brings movable type to Ankh-Morpork, William de Worde, who scraped a living writing a newsletter for a few subscribers, accidentally becomes the editor of the city's first newspaper, the Ankh-Morpork Times. With the practical Sacharissa Cripslock and the vampire picture-maker Otto Chriek, he builds a real paper almost overnight, wrestling with rumour, a scandal-mongering rival sheet, and his own compulsion to print the truth. That truth soon collides with a conspiracy: Lord Vetinari is found seemingly guilty of assaulting his clerk and attempting to flee with stolen money, and is removed from power. William realizes the scene was staged by a cabal of nobles, his own father among them, who hired two dangerous criminals, the New Firm, to install a compliant replacement using a look-alike. Following the evidence, and a crucial canine witness, William proves the Patrician was framed. The plotters are undone, the criminals destroyed, and Vetinari is restored, while William, having reported honestly even against his own family, secures the Times as a permanent fixture of the city.

William de Worde earns a quiet living writing a hand-copied newsletter of Ankh-Morpork happenings for a handful of distant subscribers. When a group of dwarfs arrives in the city with a printing press and movable type, an accident of circumstance turns his little newsletter into something far larger, and he suddenly finds himself running the city's first true newspaper. As word spreads and the presses roll, William begins to grasp both the appetite for news and the trouble that telling the truth can bring.

William de Worde proves that Lord Vetinari was framed. The apparent crime was staged by a secret committee of aristocrats seeking to replace the Patrician with a puppet, using a hired look-alike and the two criminals of the New Firm to do the dirty work. Following the trail to a key witness, William assembles enough evidence to collapse the conspiracy. The New Firm come to a bad end, the plot's aristocratic backers are exposed and discredited, and Lord Vetinari is cleared and returned to power. William confronts his cold, controlling father, who is behind the scheme, and refuses to protect him, choosing the truth over blood and breaking finally with his family's expectations. The Ankh-Morpork Times, run with Sacharissa and Otto, is established as the city's newspaper, and William settles into the role he has made for himself: an editor determined to print what really happened.