[arp242]

> even The Guardian grasps this but can't extricate from their use, the news is addicted to stories financially

The dilemma that The Guardian faces is that it neither wants to draw attention to the lie, but also doesn't want to let it stand without some counter-argument. After all, if you just ignore everything then no counter-argument is ever offered and that's not good either.

This is really the "democracy hack" they're using: you don't want to draw attention to it, but you also can't really ignore it. In a healthy system, people that employ these kind of shameless dirty tricks would be excluded by the sense of civic duty of other people of their own party, as well as enlightened self-interest because in the end this will be bad for everyone. Yet here we are.