FINAL EDITION

Almost as soon as I was able to read certain people told me never to believe what was printed in the newspapers. Although I took the advice fully on board myself, I guess I was one of a small minority because those newspapers seemed to have sufficient credibility amongst the general population to drive the political agenda and even effect the way people voted. That was until the playground free-for-all of the ever-expanding universe of online discourse began to swallow them up and their influence waned alongside their circulations. Then, in the wake of the tsunami of misinformation, bizarre theories and outright lies constantly rising from the depths of the internet and breaching the walls of public understanding, I gradually started to reassess my views of the printed press. Of course, the Fourth Estate had always been a stranger to objectivity but at least they had generally started with actual facts before twisting and decontextualising them to suit their ends. In the digital world nobody bothers with such subtlety and coyness. Just make it all up from the outset. You want truth? We don’t handle the truth. Facts? As obsolete as faxes. So, when the decline reached its inevitable conclusion, I got me a copy of the last edition of the very last newspaper and I fashioned it into this hat. It’s one of a kind; perfectly designed to be fractionally too large for my head so that, when I wear it, I am temporarily unable to see a world that no longer has any other use for its source material.