Boston Globe: Satirical Trump Cover 'Based on Fact'

The Boston Globe found itself part of this weekend’s headline news by publishing a satirical front page, dated a year in the future, which envisions a Donald Trump presidency.

The parody was created by the paper’s opinion staff and ran in the opinion section, which is separate from the newsroom. However, did the paper, which was founded in 1872 by six Boston businessmen, go too far?

During an interview on the FOX Business Network’s Varney & Co., The Boston Globe Ideas Section Editor Kathleen Kingsbury said the paper did not go too far and its purpose for the satirical edition was to create a conversation.

“For generations, American newspapers have had editorial pages and news operations which have been completely separate. The same goes for The Boston Globe,” Kingsbury told host Charles Payne. “Every day our editorial page comments on news of the day and politics, and this is just a unique way of doing that.”

Kingsbury went on to say The Globe’s intention was to make the GOP pause and think about the political direction it was heading in, as well as make potential Trump voters realize what they would be getting under his presidency.

The headlines depicted by the paper’s editorial opinion section forecast some events that would allegedly occur immediately under a Trump presidency. The fake front page was dated April 9, 2017 with “Deportation to Begin” as its main headline.

Kingsbury said some of the paper’s mock-up headlines, such as “Markets Sink as Trade War Looms” and “U.S. Soldiers Refuse Orders to Kill ISIS Families,” were based on fact.

“We talk to policy analysts, economists. We talk to a wide spectrum of people about what they saw the natural consequences of some of Donald Trump’s statements are. And frankly, the candidate himself has not filled in those details for us. So we decided to do it ourselves,” she added.