News satire
Encyclopedia
News satire, also called fake news , is a type of parody
presented in a format typical of mainstream journalism
, and called a satire because of its content. News satire has been around almost as long as journalism itself, but it is particularly popular on the web, where it is relatively easy to mimic a credible news source and stories may achieve wide distribution from nearly any site. Because news satire relies heavily on irony
and deadpan humor
, it is taken much more readily and finding increasing acceptability.
, under the name of a contemporary astronomer.
Author Samuel Clemens
(Mark Twain) was employed as a newspaper reporter before becoming famous as a novelist and in this position he published many hoax articles. He left two separate journalism positions, Nevada (1864) fleeing a challenge to duel and San Francisco fleeing outraged police officials, because his satire and fiction were often taken for the truthful accounts they were presented as. Of this experience he said, "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." Perhaps it's fitting, then, that the accuracy of many newspaper and autobiographical accounts used to follow the early life of Samuel Clemens are in doubt.
Newspapers still print occasional news satire features, in particular on April Fools' Day
. This news is specifically identified somewhere in the paper or in the next day as a joke.
In 1934, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
released a series of ten one-reel theatrical shorts called Goofy Movies, which included "Wotaphony Newsreel," a newsreel
parody that paired actual footage with a mocking, deadpan
narration.
Also in 1934, halfway through a Kraft Music Hall
radio show, Dean Taylor ("Others collect the news, Dean makes it!) narrated a fake newsreel which began with a report on the New York Giants and Philadelphia Phillies being cancelled due to bad weather, and baseball season being rescheduled to when farmers need rain.
with the Satire Boom, led by such luminaries as Peter Cook
, Alan Bennett
, Jonathan Miller
, David Frost
, Eleanor Bron
and Dudley Moore
and the television programme That Was The Week That Was
.
In the United States
, the NBC
network adapted this program and also produced its own content, from the "news" segment of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, to the still-running Saturday Night Live
mock newscast segment "Weekend Update
". Cable television
got into the cable news
act with Home Box Office
's Not Necessarily the News
in the mid 1980s.
Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert
's The Colbert Report are currently very popular in the United States. A 2004 Annenberg survey found that Daily Show viewers were better informed than those who relied solely on conventional network news, and some have even compared the trust and influence Stewart enjoys today to that of CBS anchor Walter Cronkite
in the 1970s. However, a study published in the Journal of Communication suggests that entertainment news shows such as The Daily Show or The Colbert Report may not be as influential in teaching voters about political issues and candidates as was previously thought. Researchers from Ohio State University have found reasons to discount how effective these shows are in informing the general public. People watching television news learned more about a candidate’s position on issues and about political procedures compared to those watching the fake news shows, while fake news shows primarily taught viewers about a candidate’s personal background.
Fox News
launched a news satire program in February 2007 with the title of The Half Hour News Hour. Its creator describes it as "The Daily Show for conservatives", but it was cancelled within a few months. Fox News has since launched the more successful Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld
.
In Britain
, several news satires have been created, most famously the works of Chris Morris
. Show such as the radio series On the Hour
and its television version The Day Today
parodied news programs very accurately, so they were almost believable and could have been confused with actual news programs, if it was not for the fake stories reported. Morris went on to continue this and several other themes in Brass Eye
, one of the most controversial series on British television, especially after one episode broadcast mocked the way the news covered stories about pedophilia
.
Currently, British news satire is similar to shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. The Late Edition
with Marcus Brigstocke
, on digital station BBC Four
, is heavily influenced by The Daily Show. News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald
parodied news differently, by using an actual newsreader as the host. Other news satires include Broken News
, which featured several sketches of different news channels blending into each other.
In Canada, This Hour Has 22 Minutes
is an ensemble news satire show with four anchors on CBC
. The Rick Mercer Report
is a spinoff of 22 Minutes with former anchor Rick Mercer
, and is also shown on CBC. The 1960s series This Hour Has Seven Days
, although primarily a real newsmagazine, included some satirical features in its format, such as political humour songs by actress and singer Dinah Christie
.
In Germany, Heute-Show (ZDF
), and formerly Wochenshow (on SAT.1
) and Freitag Nacht News (on RTL
) are popular news satires on TV.
is foremost among recognized news satire site due to its enduring and profitable business model]. The website, which started in 1996, has become virtually synonymous with online satire; its content is syndicated through mainstream media sites such as CNN
and CNET
. Today there are hundreds of news satire sites online. Sites such as Real Celebrity News specialize in satirical articles of celebrities and includes photos of celebrity look-a-likes
as well as satirical celebrity Twitter
accounts written in the first-person narrative
. Other satire sites attempt to emulate a genuine news source of some sort; however, these sites now take a variety of forms.
Because interesting stories are often emailed and can quickly become separated from their point of origin, it is not uncommon for news satire stories to be picked up as real by the media
; as had happened with a Faking News
story about a lawsuit against Lynx by an Indian man after having failed to attract a girl. Additionally, a parody post on Al Sharpton's parody News Groper blog was quoted as if real by MSNBC. Another satire publication, The Giant Napkin, published an article about a man literally fighting his house fire with more fire, a story taken seriously by several social networking sites. The fact that Google News
accepts news satire sources helps contribute to this phenomenon; while Google News does mark such stories with a "satire" tag, not all readers notice the tag; moreover, sometimes satirical sources may not carry the tag. At least one site, thespoof.com, relies on user-generated content in a Web 2.0
manner.
Some websites like Literally Unbelievable post the genuine and shocked reactions of individuals who believe the satirical articles are real. The reactions are taken from social media
websites, such as Facebook
, in which users can directly comment on links to the article's source.
Multi-author Indian website News That Matters Not, established in November 2009, reached the finals in Digital Empowerment Foundation's Manthan South Asia Awards 2011 for socially responsible e-content. In India
, several community-based news satire
websites have crept up in recent times. Their popularity on Facebook
defines that they are popular amongst the masses. Very new websites such as The Scoop Times, Sunkey.co.in and The UnReal Times also claim to be run by students, and were covered in The Times of India
in July 2011 .
Several sites community of selected news satire sites which runs its own satire news feed on HumorFeed
. HumorFeed is notable for its relatively high standards of admission and active community involvement. At present, over 60 sites are contributing members, at least eight of which have published books and two of which publish regular hard copy periodicals. Several HumorFeed members also run Check Please!, an online journal devoted to the serious examination of online satire, ranging from its role in relation to actual journalism to practical considerations of producing an online satire site.
In July 2009, a satire piece about Kanye West
published on the website ScrapeTV was picked up by numerous media outlets and reported as factual, despite disclaimers on the site.
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
presented in a format typical of mainstream journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
, and called a satire because of its content. News satire has been around almost as long as journalism itself, but it is particularly popular on the web, where it is relatively easy to mimic a credible news source and stories may achieve wide distribution from nearly any site. Because news satire relies heavily on irony
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
and deadpan humor
Deadpan
Deadpan is a form of comic delivery in which humor is presented without a change in emotion or body language, usually speaking in a casual, monotone, solemn, blunt, disgusted or matter-of-fact voice and expressing an unflappably calm, archly insincere or artificially grave demeanor...
, it is taken much more readily and finding increasing acceptability.
News satire in history
Richard A. Locke successfully increased sales of The Sun newspaper in 1835 by publishing a series of six articles, now known as the Great Moon HoaxGreat Moon Hoax
"The Great Moon Hoax" refers to a series of six articles that were published in the New York Sun beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and even civilization on the Moon...
, under the name of a contemporary astronomer.
Author Samuel Clemens
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
(Mark Twain) was employed as a newspaper reporter before becoming famous as a novelist and in this position he published many hoax articles. He left two separate journalism positions, Nevada (1864) fleeing a challenge to duel and San Francisco fleeing outraged police officials, because his satire and fiction were often taken for the truthful accounts they were presented as. Of this experience he said, "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." Perhaps it's fitting, then, that the accuracy of many newspaper and autobiographical accounts used to follow the early life of Samuel Clemens are in doubt.
Newspapers still print occasional news satire features, in particular on April Fools' Day
April Fools' Day
April Fools' Day is celebrated in different countries around the world on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness...
. This news is specifically identified somewhere in the paper or in the next day as a joke.
In 1934, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
released a series of ten one-reel theatrical shorts called Goofy Movies, which included "Wotaphony Newsreel," a newsreel
Newsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
parody that paired actual footage with a mocking, deadpan
Deadpan
Deadpan is a form of comic delivery in which humor is presented without a change in emotion or body language, usually speaking in a casual, monotone, solemn, blunt, disgusted or matter-of-fact voice and expressing an unflappably calm, archly insincere or artificially grave demeanor...
narration.
Also in 1934, halfway through a Kraft Music Hall
Kraft Music Hall
The Kraft Music Hall was a popular variety program, featuring top show business entertainers, which aired on NBC radio and television from 1933 to 1971....
radio show, Dean Taylor ("Others collect the news, Dean makes it!) narrated a fake newsreel which began with a report on the New York Giants and Philadelphia Phillies being cancelled due to bad weather, and baseball season being rescheduled to when farmers need rain.
Broadcast news satire
News satire has been prevalent on television since the 1960s, when it enjoyed a renaissance in the UKUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
with the Satire Boom, led by such luminaries as Peter Cook
Peter Cook
Peter Edward Cook was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath," although Cook's...
, Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research mediaeval history at the university for several years...
, Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...
, David Frost
David Frost (broadcaster)
Sir David Paradine Frost, OBE is a British journalist, comedian, writer, media personality and daytime TV game show host best known for his two decades as host of Through the Keyhole and serious interviews with various political figures, the most notable being Richard Nixon...
, Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron is an English stage, film and television actress and author.-Early life and family:Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin...
and Dudley Moore
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...
and the television programme That Was The Week That Was
That Was The Week That Was
That Was The Week That Was, also known as TW3, is a satirical television comedy programme that was shown on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost...
.
In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
network adapted this program and also produced its own content, from the "news" segment of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, to the still-running Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
mock newscast segment "Weekend Update
Weekend Update
Weekend Update is a Saturday Night Live sketch that comments on and parodies current events. It is the show's longest running recurring sketch, having been on since the show's first broadcast, and is typically presented in the middle of the show immediately after the first musical performance...
". Cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
got into the cable news
United States cable news
Cable news refers to television channels devoted to television news broadcasts, with the name deriving from the proliferation of such networks during the 1980s with the advent of cable television. In the United States, early networks included CNN in 1980, Financial News Network in 1981, and CNN2 ...
act with Home Box Office
Home Box Office
HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
's Not Necessarily the News
Not Necessarily the News
Not Necessarily the News was a satirical sketch comedy series that ran on HBO from 1983 to 1990. It featured sketches, parody news items, commercial parodies, and humorous bits made from overdubbing or editing actual news footage. It was based on the British series, Not the Nine O'Clock News...
in the mid 1980s.
Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...
's The Colbert Report are currently very popular in the United States. A 2004 Annenberg survey found that Daily Show viewers were better informed than those who relied solely on conventional network news, and some have even compared the trust and influence Stewart enjoys today to that of CBS anchor Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
in the 1970s. However, a study published in the Journal of Communication suggests that entertainment news shows such as The Daily Show or The Colbert Report may not be as influential in teaching voters about political issues and candidates as was previously thought. Researchers from Ohio State University have found reasons to discount how effective these shows are in informing the general public. People watching television news learned more about a candidate’s position on issues and about political procedures compared to those watching the fake news shows, while fake news shows primarily taught viewers about a candidate’s personal background.
Fox News
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
launched a news satire program in February 2007 with the title of The Half Hour News Hour. Its creator describes it as "The Daily Show for conservatives", but it was cancelled within a few months. Fox News has since launched the more successful Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld
Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld
Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld is a late-night/early-morning satirical talk show on the Fox News Channel, airing at 3:00 am ET Tuesday through Saturday. The show features panelists and guests discussing the latest news in politics, pop culture, entertainment, business, sports, and religion...
.
In Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, several news satires have been created, most famously the works of Chris Morris
Chris Morris (satirist)
Christopher Morris is an English satirist, writer, director and actor. A former radio DJ, he is best known for anchoring the spoof news and current affairs television programmes The Day Today and Brass Eye, as well as his frequent engagement with controversial subject matter.In 2010 Morris...
. Show such as the radio series On the Hour
On the Hour
On the Hour was a British radio programme that parodied current affairs broadcasting, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1991 and 1992.Written by Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, Steven Wells, Andrew Glover, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring and David Quantick, it starred Morris as the overzealous and...
and its television version The Day Today
The Day Today
The Day Today is a surreal British parody of television current affairs programmes, broadcast in 1994, and created by the comedians Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris. It is an adaptation of the radio programme On the Hour, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1991 and 1992...
parodied news programs very accurately, so they were almost believable and could have been confused with actual news programs, if it was not for the fake stories reported. Morris went on to continue this and several other themes in Brass Eye
Brass Eye
Brass Eye is a UK television series of satirical spoof documentaries. A series of six aired on Channel 4 in 1997, and a further episode in 2001....
, one of the most controversial series on British television, especially after one episode broadcast mocked the way the news covered stories about pedophilia
Pedophilia
As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children...
.
Currently, British news satire is similar to shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. The Late Edition
The Late Edition
The Late Edition was a British television programme broadcast on BBC Four. It took the form of a topical chat show in the vein of The Daily Show, presented by comedian Marcus Brigstocke...
with Marcus Brigstocke
Marcus Brigstocke
Marcus Alexander Brigstocke is an English comedian, actor and satirist who has worked extensively in stand-up comedy, television, radio and in 2010-2011 musical theatre. He is particularly associated with the 6.30pm comedy slot on BBC Radio 4, having frequently appeared on several of its shows...
, on digital station BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
, is heavily influenced by The Daily Show. News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald
News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald
News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald, more commonly referred to as simply News Knight was a British television panel show shown on ITV, at 22:00 on Sunday nights. Fronted by Sir Trevor McDonald and in a similar style to the BBC One programme Have I Got News for You, its format featured three...
parodied news differently, by using an actual newsreader as the host. Other news satires include Broken News
Broken News
Broken News is a comedy programme shown on BBC Two in autumn 2005 and in Australia on SBS-TV from the 17 July 2006. The show poked fun at the world of 24-hour rolling news channels. The title of the show is a play on the phrase "Breaking News". It had six thirty-minute episodes...
, which featured several sketches of different news channels blending into each other.
In Canada, This Hour Has 22 Minutes
This Hour Has 22 Minutes
This Hour Has 22 Minutes is a weekly Canadian television comedy that airs on CBC Television. Launched in 1993 during Canada's 35th general election, the show focuses on Canadian politics, combining news parody, sketch comedy and satirical editorials...
is an ensemble news satire show with four anchors on CBC
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
. The Rick Mercer Report
Rick Mercer Report
Rick Mercer Report is a Canadian television comedy series which airs on CBC Television...
is a spinoff of 22 Minutes with former anchor Rick Mercer
Rick Mercer
Richard Vincent "Rick" Mercer is a Canadian comedian, television personality, political satirist, and blogger.Mercer first came to national attention in 1990, when he premiered his one man show Show Me the Button, I'll Push It, or Charles Lynch Must Die at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in...
, and is also shown on CBC. The 1960s series This Hour Has Seven Days
This Hour Has Seven Days
This Hour Has Seven Days is a controversial CBC Television newsmagazine which ran from 1964 to 1966. The show, inspired by the BBC-TV and NBC-TV satire series That Was The Week That Was, was created by Patrick Watson and Douglas Leiterman as an avenue for a more stimulating and boundary-pushing...
, although primarily a real newsmagazine, included some satirical features in its format, such as political humour songs by actress and singer Dinah Christie
Dinah Christie
Dinah Barbara Christie is a Canadian comedic actor and singer.The daughter of actors Robert and Margot Christie, she came to Canada at the age of two with her parents and grew up in Toronto. At age 13, she worked as a call boy at the Stratford Festival and became an apprentice at the Festival in...
.
In Germany, Heute-Show (ZDF
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
), and formerly Wochenshow (on SAT.1
Sat.1
Sat.1 is a privately owned German television broadcasting station. Sat.1 was the first privately owned television broadcasting station in Germany, having started one day before RTL Television....
) and Freitag Nacht News (on RTL
RTL Television
Rtl.de' redirects here. For other uses, see RTL.RTL Television , or simply RTL, is a German commercial television station distributed via cable and satellite along with DVB-T , in larger population centres...
) are popular news satires on TV.
News satire on the web
News satire has been posted on the web almost since its inception, but few would contest that The OnionThe Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
is foremost among recognized news satire site due to its enduring and profitable business model]. The website, which started in 1996, has become virtually synonymous with online satire; its content is syndicated through mainstream media sites such as CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
and CNET
CNET
CNET is a tech media website that publishes news articles, blogs, and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. Originally founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through CNET Networks' acquisition...
. Today there are hundreds of news satire sites online. Sites such as Real Celebrity News specialize in satirical articles of celebrities and includes photos of celebrity look-a-likes
Look-alike
A look-alike is a person who closely resembles another person. In popular Western culture, a look-alike is a person who bears a close physical resemblance to a celebrity, politician or member of royalty. Many look-alikes earn a living by making guest appearances at public events or performing on...
as well as satirical celebrity Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
accounts written in the first-person narrative
First-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
. Other satire sites attempt to emulate a genuine news source of some sort; however, these sites now take a variety of forms.
Because interesting stories are often emailed and can quickly become separated from their point of origin, it is not uncommon for news satire stories to be picked up as real by the media
News media
The news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...
; as had happened with a Faking News
Faking News
Faking News is an Indian news satire website that publishes fake news reports containing satire on politics and society of India. The website also publishes occasional serious articles related to television journalism in India...
story about a lawsuit against Lynx by an Indian man after having failed to attract a girl. Additionally, a parody post on Al Sharpton's parody News Groper blog was quoted as if real by MSNBC. Another satire publication, The Giant Napkin, published an article about a man literally fighting his house fire with more fire, a story taken seriously by several social networking sites. The fact that Google News
Google News
Google News is a free news aggregator provided by Google Inc, selecting recent items from thousands of publications by an automatic aggregation algorithm....
accepts news satire sources helps contribute to this phenomenon; while Google News does mark such stories with a "satire" tag, not all readers notice the tag; moreover, sometimes satirical sources may not carry the tag. At least one site, thespoof.com, relies on user-generated content in a Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
manner.
Some websites like Literally Unbelievable post the genuine and shocked reactions of individuals who believe the satirical articles are real. The reactions are taken from social media
Social media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...
websites, such as Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, in which users can directly comment on links to the article's source.
Multi-author Indian website News That Matters Not, established in November 2009, reached the finals in Digital Empowerment Foundation's Manthan South Asia Awards 2011 for socially responsible e-content. In India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, several community-based news satire
News satire
thumb|right|220px|[[The Daily Show with Jon Stewart]] is a news satire program.News satire, also called fake news , is a type of parody presented in a format typical of mainstream journalism, and called a satire because of its content...
websites have crept up in recent times. Their popularity on Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
defines that they are popular amongst the masses. Very new websites such as The Scoop Times, Sunkey.co.in and The UnReal Times also claim to be run by students, and were covered in The Times of India
The Times of India
The Times of India is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. TOI has the largest circulation among all English-language newspaper in the world, across all formats . It is owned and managed by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd...
in July 2011 .
Several sites community of selected news satire sites which runs its own satire news feed on HumorFeed
HumorFeed
HumorFeed is a satire and humor news aggregator website founded in 2003 by Bill Doty and Uncle Sharky, who brought together a group of around 20 news satire webmasters. It displays headlines submitted by its members in a list generated daily in an RSS feed which many members also include on their...
. HumorFeed is notable for its relatively high standards of admission and active community involvement. At present, over 60 sites are contributing members, at least eight of which have published books and two of which publish regular hard copy periodicals. Several HumorFeed members also run Check Please!, an online journal devoted to the serious examination of online satire, ranging from its role in relation to actual journalism to practical considerations of producing an online satire site.
In July 2009, a satire piece about Kanye West
Kanye West
Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, singer, and record producer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and...
published on the website ScrapeTV was picked up by numerous media outlets and reported as factual, despite disclaimers on the site.
See also
- List of satirical television news programs
- HumorFeedHumorFeedHumorFeed is a satire and humor news aggregator website founded in 2003 by Bill Doty and Uncle Sharky, who brought together a group of around 20 news satire webmasters. It displays headlines submitted by its members in a list generated daily in an RSS feed which many members also include on their...
(Aggregator) - NewsBiscuitNewsBiscuitNewsBiscuit is a British satirical news website. It was founded in September 2006 to create a new outlet for British humour on the internet by a group consisting mainly of comedy writers including John O'Farrell.- Content :...
- The ChaserThe ChaserThe Chaser are an Australian satirical comedian group, known for their television programmes on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation channel. The group take their name from their production of satirical newspaper, a publication known to challenge conventions of taste...
- SatireWireSatireWireFrom 1999 to 2002, and restarted in 2010 SatireWire is one of the most popular news satire websites on the Internet. Based in Connecticut and founded by Andrew Marlatt, the site aimed its satire at politics, business, the media, and current events, and spawned Marlatt's 2002 book Economy of Errors...
- Broken NewzBroken NewzBroken Newz is a news satire website launched in 2001 by Bill Doty. Its real news look has often fooled readers into believing the validity of the site's content. An example of this was a story regarding William Hung overdosing on Heroin, which was reported by the China Press as fact.The site...
- Faking NewsFaking NewsFaking News is an Indian news satire website that publishes fake news reports containing satire on politics and society of India. The website also publishes occasional serious articles related to television journalism in India...
- Lush For LifeLush For LifeLush For Life was a bi-weekly comedy/satirical newspaper distributed in the Tampa Bay area. The newspaper was run by college students and targeted Universities and Community Colleges in the area....
– abandoned 2007 - Weekly World NewsWeekly World NewsThe Weekly World News was a supermarket tabloid published in the United States from 1979 to 2007, renowned for its outlandish cover stories often based on supernatural or paranormal themes and an approach to news that verged on the satirical. Its characteristic black-and-white covers have become...
- ScrappleFaceScrappleFaceScrappleFace is a U.S. website run by Scott Ott that satirizes the news from a conservative perspective.The name ScrappleFace was coined by Ott's grandmother, Jessica McMaster , who cared for Ott and his brothers from the age of five...
- The OxymoronThe OxymoronThe Oxymoron is a satirical student magazine published anonymously by and for students of Oxford University. It takes the form of a spoof newspaper, similar to The Onion, though with a focus on events relevant to the life of an Oxford student. The magazine takes its name from the concept of an...
- Disassociated PressDisassociated PressDisassociated Press, or The Disassociated Press, is a common spoof on The Associated Press used by satirists to depict a fictitious news organization. It has been used throughout the years in entertainment and literature in a variety of vehicles, ranging from Looney Tunes cartoons from the 1950s...
- The OnionThe OnionThe Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
- UnNewsUncyclopediaUncyclopedia is a satirical website that parodies Wikipedia. Founded in 2005 as an originally English-language wiki, the project currently spans over 75 languages...
- The Daily News