It has been argued elsewhere in this compilation of essays that there has emerged a distinctive form of "postmodernist" fantasy which subverts and undermines the traditional assumptions of the genre as practised by such writers as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien (see Stephen Prickett). This might well be the case; but the traditional forms of fantasy have not been discarded, and both those forms and the polemic intention to which the language of fantasy contributes have been appropriated by other cultural institutions. It is my intention in this essay to examine the way in which the western news media in particular have adopted the forms of fantasy, and the purposes to which they are being put.