The article examines an excerpt of history of old Polish news stories. Its main focus is on the ephemeral prints disseminated in 1608–1609. Their origins was tied to an important episode in the course of the Dimitriads, during which the figure known as False Dmitry II appeared in the Muscovite state and achieved a number of victories over the army of the Tsar Vasili Shuisky. Meanwhile in Poland, at Sigismund III Vasa’s court, a plan of the future war with Muscovy was being prepared. Numerous political text were published at that time, including poetical agitations “for Dmitry” and “for the war with Muscovy.” They took a form of news stories in verse, a genre well known to its intended audience and, similar to old history songs, valued as a source of reliable knowledge about the past. The characteristics of news stories — their melicity, which contributed to their mass appeal, topicality, which raised interest, reading current events through the lens of divine providence, which was typical for this genre of writing, and finally their use of wonder and uncaniness as narrative devices — made them an efficient tool for forming the nobility’s opinions. That transformation of functions of rhymed newspapers from a medium of information to a transmitter of propaganda, taking place in the beginnings of the 17th century, is the context of the analyses conducted in the article.