Recent weeks have seen an increasing global media panic centred around the Italian Referendum vote. The main argument, spread with great effectiveness across the Atlantic and within the continent, was that a No vote to the Italian constitutional reform would mean a victory for populists in Europe, thus fatally damaging an already vulnerable European democracy.
With a few exceptions, international media coverage has constantly compared the Italian Constitutional referendum with the Brexit vote or the catastrophic election of Trump.
Perhaps one of the best ways to explain this frenzied reaction by international media is to borrow the idea of “truthiness”, brilliantly coined by Stephen Colbert in 2005: international media coverage has overtly embraced truthiness instead of truth.
Benedetta Brevini is a journalist, media activist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney. She has worked for CNBC and RAI in Milan, New York and London. She writes on The Guardian’s Comment is Free and contributes to a number of print and web publications.