The unnamed editor cited an Afghan news agency report.
The unnamed editor went on to argue that the premise of the Onion report — that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is more popular with white, rural Americans than President Obama — might even be accurate, if fictional.
Somebody put serious effort into the way they were presented, complete with a preface from an unnamed "editor" who used the salesman's trick of seeming to side with a doubtful audience.
Readers of the New Statesman – where, I discovered, this piece first ran – may well have known the identity of an unnamed "editor of the Spectator", but readers of this book will not, especially since they aren't told the year.
"Although it does not justify our mistake, we do believe that if a free opinion poll is conducted in the US, a majority of Americans would prefer anyone outside the US political system to President Barack Obama and American statesmen," the Fars story quoted the unnamed editor as saying.
Their own report, though, comes full of unnamed "former editors", unnamed "police officers" and the like.
An article in The New York Times Magazine last year quoted a former reporter, Sean Hoare, and an unnamed former editor as saying that Mr. Coulson had known about and encouraged the hacking.
The Times Magazine article provided new details, quoting a former reporter, Sean Hoare, and a unnamed former editor at The News of the World as saying that Mr. Coulson was fully aware of the hacking.
