UnNews:Chief Editor Dismisses "uncanny" UnNews Predictions
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This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation. |
UnNews Chief Editor Andrew "Necessary Evil" Neil poopooed claims last night that UnNews had clairvoyant powers when it came to items that pre-dated major national and international news stories. Several items have appeared in UnNews recently that were followed by similar stories in the media.
"It's far more likely", he said, "that hard-pressed journalists are turning to UnNews for leads when otherwise they wouldn't have anything to print. However, we are all disturbed that UnNews is achieving a dubious international reputation for uncannily accurate reporting in spite of its mission to misinform." Members of the Executive Board will be holding a special meeting on Monday to discuss how "alleged truths" have managed to escape the editors' scissors.
One of the most sensational examples of UnNews early reporting concerned a story that appeared in today's newspapers about childbirth. An article in London's Metro newspaper headed Father is Labour Ward Pain indicated that "research had shown that anxious fathers pass on their fears to mothers giving birth by Caesarian section". UnCyclopedia published the New Labour article (done as a background piece for the UnNews politics desk) about a week before the Labour article appeared in the British Press.
Andrew Neil's comment: "Everyone knows that Julius Caesar was a skillful politician - some would say as skillful as Tony Blair. The important Perry Natal research, now reaffirmed by researchers at Imperial College London, was first publicised by UnNews, and this has obviously been followed up by the rest of the media. I don't believe that UnNews reporters have supernatural powers."
A spokesperson for the Executive Board said, "I can't make any predictions about Monday's meeting, but I can say that we will be looking to increase the number of editors to provide better controls to stop true stories hitting your screens."
The editor of The Metro claimed that UnNews shouldn't have a monopoly on misinformation, and that his newspaper was just as capable of inventing stories as anyone else. However, the Creative Commons license under which UnNews articles are published means that people using its material don't have to give attributions, so the question of UnNews' predictive powers is unlikely to be resolved in the foreseeable future.