News Really Limited

News Really Limited

Media mogul extraordinaire Rupert Murdoch came clean today as he announced the secret behind his print and television networks. “It’s satire,” claimed an exuberant Murdoch. “The whole kit and caboodle. It’s been going on since the 70s.”

“Satire is an art best dressed in subtleties,” Rupert explained further. “The transition was made up until early 1980, and from then onwards the enterprises I oversaw made a cunning jibe at conservative politics and the cult of personality (and) celebrity phenomena. This was achieved by converting prevalent media to mock-ups based around popular trash news and other non-newsworthy and biased garbage. The intent was to made it increasingly ludicrous, and I congratulate the team for achieving that.”

In front of a stunned press gallery he defended the strict editorial control, as “a necessity to maintain the delicately restrained angle we were aiming for. I am truly surprised that no one seems to have wizened up to it. It is arguable whether satirical larks can be considered to have succeeded when they are unanimously believed or when they are recognized in their true colors.”

One of the main points of the venture “was to poke fun at the incessant popular culture worship.” Initially, the late John Lennon’s remark about the worship of his bands in comparison to that of Jesus Christ was one of the sparks that ignited the idea. “I was surprised that the campaign was so successful, that came right out of left field. But, in hindsight, it coalesces with the initial point I was making, that this is what people want to hear, and we simply accentuated the absurdities of it. The worse it got, the more we sold.”

From sensationalist journalism to page three girls, from spinning political reports to blatant cross-promotion, his target set a wide net that swept up the very pop consumers it was designed to mimic the desires of.

New York Times journalist Judith Miller said: “Well, it does explain a lot of things.” Some News Limited staff were heard to be relieved. “Thank goodness we can now speak freely about it. Some of us liked to take it a whole step further than old Rupert intended” smirked Andrew Bolt of Australia’s Herald Sun news-pictorial. “It has been great fun antagonising everyone, never ceasing to entertain me that despite the absurdity of it all, not once did anyone click to the possibility that it could just be an elaborate prank.”

Later Mr. Murdoch referred to Outfoxed as “way off the mark”, and The Yes Men as “amateurs.” The press were left with one final comment: “I thought I almost gave the game away with the name News-Limited itself.”