The editor of a satirical newspaper was reported to have his head in his hands after 60,000 people read an article he’d written about The Daily Mail’s coverage of the Olympics and literally taken it literally.
“I was in a shop when I saw a copy of The Daily Mail when I thought ‘why’s Joanna Rowsell Shand MBE not on the cover with her team mates?’ I put on a pair of gloves and turned the paper over to see her on the back, but there was no mention of her name or that other girl, the one with the pink hair Katie Archibald.”
When asked what he did next he replied;
“I thought about it for a bit and then thought, I should write some satire about that. After all, that’s what satire is for. To amplify reality to emphasise the nature of hypocrisy in our society. Sometimes it can be funny, but mine is usually quite angry.”
“So I took the dog for a walk and imagined what possessed the editor of The Daily Mail to crop out a young woman with an MBE and several Gold Medals to her name, who happens to have alopecia, from the cover of his paper and then wrote some satire about it.”
“I’ve had to put my phone on silent, it seems people literally believe everything they read on the Internet. They’re all mad, it even says satire on the homepage. Muppets.”
For clarity The Daily Mail did take the extraordinary decision to crop Rowsell Shand MBE from the front page photo, but we didn’t speak to the editor.
