Tomorrow’s news today: a fake FT from 2020

As seen at the London G20 protests, and online.

Inspired by a long line of activists, from Reclaim the Streets in Britain to The Yes Men, I decided to publish a fake Financial Times.

Its objective was primarily satirical, but there were also some serious points behind the jokes. The film below explains them in more depth.

My aim was to show how news gets skewed routinely, to suit the interests of FT readers, or as the editor calls them in private, “the global elite”.

They’d rather read unbiased stories, so they can figure out how to maximise their profits. But their assumptions don’t get challenged in “the pink ‘un”, especially not the pursuit of endless growth.

The paper took three months to put together, and most of that was spent laying out the text, and designing a website, with anonymous assistance. The Curmudgeonly Philip Challinor wrote the funny bits. The rest of the preparation work was mine.

This meant that far too little thought when into raising money, or recruiting volunteers, but a hundred or so turned up for distribution.We handed out 25,000 copies to commuters, at a cost of a few thousand pounds.

The media reaction was surprising. It was interesting how many people copied my press release, ignoring the thrust of the paper’s centrepiece analysis, which was later reprinted in the British Journalism Review.

All the stories in FT 2020 can be read here, and a copy in PDF downloaded here.

A selection of global coverage is appended.

PRESS RELEASE

27 MARCH 2009

Fake FT wakes up London to radical action

Concerned Londoners today handed out copies of a spoof Financial Times, urging journalists and big business to make the future possible by putting people first.

Set in 2020, the 12-page paper revealed how action in 2009 reined in climate change, saving billions from extinction. Carbon rationing didn’t kill us, it explained, despite the inconvenience to multinational companies. But we couldn’t have endless growth with finite resources. Editors even apologised for suggesting otherwise.

“We live on financial crimes,” the paper confessed in a front-page advert, which satirised a recent Financial Times billboard. “In a world of cold harsh truths,” it said, beside a panting St Bernard atop a mountain, “we rescue stories from the facts.”

Launched at dawn from behind Waterloo station, this coup was aimed at everyone’s excuses for apathy. Unless we change the way we live radically, we’ll make our world uninhabitable within decades. It’s time for drastic action, and if governments won’t take it, we have to do something ourselves.

“Journalists frame public debate, and the City frames public policy,” said Raoul Djukanovic, who edited today’s fake FT. “If they reframed their thinking, they could help build a different world instead of conning us with lifestyle porn and bubbles.”

The paper was a full-colour replica of the iconic pink ‘un, including news from Britain and abroad, and editorials and comment, poking fun at FT columnists. It was funded by donations on the Internet, and given away for free by volunteers. Tens of thousands of copies were printed – almost as many as the FT sells here daily.

Why bother, some commuters asked. “Newspapers won’t change the world, but they do spread words that can make people think,” said Marcos Marcuse, who handed out papers near London Bridge. “What are we going to tell our children? That we thought about trying to save ourselves, but it wasn’t ‘good business’ or ‘objective reporting’?”

Unsurprisingly, the PR trade press lifted most liberally from the above (as did news agencies, which spread the word worldwide).

Others took more time and ran full interviews. The most extensive of these, with Greenvoice, is posted here:

Another, with Christian Aid’s Ctrl.Alt.Shift magazine, is available here. There’s also more in this article by Orlando Hughes on the need to make statements.

Click on the links below for further articles.