The first step in making a better world is getting a handle on this fake news business. Unfortunately, the real news is so weird, it's hard to tell.

Okay, here's what really happened. And if you're back from Alpha Centauri, we have one question: what was your hurry?

1. The Daily Mail apologised to the wife of the US president. Yes. They had to. A court made them.
2. The White House press secretary apologised for Hitler on Passover. No. But Mr Spicer did rename concentration camps as 'Holocaust centres'.
3. Virgin Media accepted full blame for a glitch that kept its customers off Facebook. No. They blamed Facebook, of course.
4. The US Secretary for Housing and Urban Development got stuck in a public housing lift, to general glee. Yes. We believe there was cheering involved.
5. In an amazing breakthrough, scientists figured out why shoelaces come untied. Yes. How humanity has lived without this knowledge for so long, we can't imagine.
6. Pepsico released a popular television advert that boosted sales and enhanced the lead actress's career. No. That advert put the company in the doghouse, greatly to the scorn of Twitter.
7. United Airlines politely escorted a supernumerary passenger off a plane, apologising handsomely for the minor inconvenience. No. No and no. Videos of the protesting (and bleeding) passenger went viral within minutes, and the company's stock dropped. Lawyers will get rich.
8. Male Australian newscasters donned ladies' blouses as part of a protest. Yes. They were showing solidarity with a female coworker who was criticised for wearing the same blouse twice in four months. To highlight the public's uneven attention to female newscasters' wardrobes, one Australian bloke wore the exact same blue suit on air for a year. Nobody noticed.
9. Ohio, USA, prison inmates used a work programme to build their own computers and download porn. Yes. They hid the homemade computers in the ceiling. (We know you were wondering.)
10. A bust of footballer Cristiano Ronaldo at Madeira airport was unveiled to general acclaim. No. The bust was unveiled. But it looked like this, so nobody was thrilled.

See? It pays to pay attention. Sometimes it's hard to tell the really incredible news from the really incredible news, if you get what we mean.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

01.05.17 Front Page

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