Umberto Eco’s quip “There is no news in August” hasn’t really been falsified as much as confirmed this summer. Eco was being ironic - just because the political class goes on holiday in the summer doesn’t mean that big events stop happening. But the unhealthy reliance by journalists on those in power to feed them stories and narratives means that the summer’s political machinations don’t get proper coverage: the plotting of policy, war and terrorism. That’s why no one saw the fall of Kabul coming, writes Peter Jukes. 

SUGGESTED READING The real reason for leaving Afghanistan By Hew Strachan One of the optical illusions that reveal the heavily constructed reality portrayed in modern media is the anomaly of the ‘silly season’ - the summer months when events slow down, and news becomes so scarce that journalists are reduced to seeking out performative absurdities such as skateboarding ducks, or Nigel Farage fishing for asylum seekers in the British channel. Of course, reality goes on regardless, whether it’s the increase in the number of extreme weather events due to global warming, or the shock collapse of the Afghan Government and the return of the Taliban to rule in Kabul. But the notion that ‘no news happens in August’ as Umberto Eco commented, sardonically, reveals how much of our mediated reality is artificial.