Iqfy Satire

By Ben Singer

“The media world is being hijacked by four billionaire executives - Rupert Murdoch and his siblings, John Portas and Mary Lee Russinberger.’ This is the basic rationale articulated by no other ‘journalism’ organisations except the BBC, which is generally accepted as the least damning description of ‘mainstream journalism’ I have seen in any newspapers outside of America, but on which British newspapers have dutifully copied without much criticism, although neither of these two magazines are truly mainstream.

“The common strand of the critique is simply called the ‘first 500 overreactions’ trope. The essence of this view is that stories about the powerful suddenly become popular without proof that they were always there or that they pose any particular threat.

“For instance, take the idea (which is not far from an idea in itself) that Donald Trump is leading a communist revolution. So if you point out that the ‘authorities’ in a country like Russia are ‘communists’, they will immediately be accused of committing treason. But nothing could be further from the truth. The US security apparatus is the envy of much of the world. Russia may have its own secret police, but behind those doors are millions of well-paid employees.

“But then what is the article for? ‘Redacted as a mole’? Surely someone must already have warned the director general of MI6, Sir Michael Rrettenwald who was the UK’s head of MI6 for almost 70 years until he retired in October 2016, that it would pay dividends if the British authorities were to disclose every mole working inside Russian intelligence agencies. Yet somehow, something worse than traitor is alleged to have been uncovered. Again, nothing else could be true!

“There are surely ample threads of logic to prevent the original publication of such a story from ever being retracted. But when the BBC runs a report on Russia’s attempt to gain access to our nuclear weapons, we can’t easily brush it off as ‘fake news’ because people might not be so sure whether the story is ‘truthful’.

“But how can anyone explain the ‘news’ that certain networks are prepared to publish stories about Russian interference in the outcome of the 2016 US election?