the spoof financial times

on friday march 27th, thousands of copies of a spoof version of the financial times were distributed by climate change campaigners, as the UK prime minister, gordon brown, prepares to host next week’s G20 summit in london. the fake edition of the paper, which had 12 pages, was set in 2020 and largely focused on issues about capitalism, human rights and the environment. they also set up a website in the style of FT.  the project cost less than £10,000 and was partly funded by internet donations and handed out by volunteers.

activist design : fake financial times were handed out by protest movement

the paper was largely written by two people – in an editorial, raoul djukanovic, called for journalists to take a more responsible approach to reporting. ‘journalists frame public debate, and the city frames public policy,’ he said, ‘if they reframed their thinking, they could help build a different world instead of conning us with lifestyle porn and bubbles.’ djukanovic, who described himself as a former journalist who used to work in belgrade, wrote the content with an unnamed colleague.

activist design : fake financial times were handed out by protest movement

‘it is a mix of jokes and arguments, of varying quality, but the production is superb. they have reproduced the look of the FT very impressively’, one of the financial times editors, ed crooks, said,’ the best bit: the leader column, which writes -frankly, the financial times is more honest than most, both about its bias and the state of the world. investors tend to want their news less filtered, even if they still like it framed to serve their interests. – perhaps we should use that in our advertising.’

activist design : fake financial times were handed out by protest movement

check the not stupid website launching tomorrow, april, 1st. the april fool’s day.

activist design : fake financial times were handed out by protest movement ‘you can’t put all your energy in one barrel, but we can’ ad

last year protesters handed out a similar send-up of the new york times, which carried a story on the front page claiming the war in iraq was over.