A serious blog about satire in the news, free speech, and the media.
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What's happening in the online world of satire, humor, and free speech.
Half Of 25-Year-Old's Writing Onion-Denied
March 10, 2008
The fabled Onion looms large across the online humor landscape. For the average
struggling satirist, this institution - syndicated through mainstream media sites and with multiple
bestselling books - represents an unattainable pinnacle. Imagine, then, being contacted out of the blue
by the Onion with an invitation to try out for a position. It's like being called by the Yankees because of your
performance on the company softball team. It happened to John Curtis, and though he didn't end up making the
team, he has a remarkable story to tell.
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Never Too Late: Enduring Vision Un-Retires After Winning 3rd Annual HumorFeed Competition
Satire site The Enduring Vision, after almost seven years and over 2,000 articles, had pretty
much run its course, thought founder Josh Righter. He officially retired the Vision in 2007. Then,
something unexpected happened: he ended up taking first place in the 3rd annual HumorFeed awards. A
panel of writers and journalists selected his story, Ford To Market Car Bomb Models In Iraq, as the
top story of the year.
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So Laugh Already! - Taking Jewish Satire Online
Humor and satire have long been staples of Jewish culture. In this special feature, Richard Rabkin,
the editor of HumorFeed member site Jewlarious.com, describes some of the highlights and challenges of
managing a website dedicated to Jewish satire.
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G. Xavier Robillard - Coming Soon to a Website Near You (if he hasn't already)
June 11, 2007
There's a new blog on the web. The same could be said on pretty much any day of the week,
but this one marks the continuing expansion of G. Xavier Robillard across the internet,
which is a noteworthy milestone indeed. His work now appears in a dozen websites, not
counting his own, as well as National Public Radio. With an award under his belt and a book
in the works, things are looking good for Robillard.
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When Humor Meets Homophobia
March 12, 2007
Whenever you write something humorous, there's always the chance that
someone won't get the joke. This is especially true for news satire,
which resembles 'serious' news in form if not fact. Some subjects,
however, are more sensitive than others. Homophobia is one such subject,
and it seems that almost nothing is too absurd to be taken seriously.
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For Confusion Road, 'Gas of the Year' Leads to Story of the Year
February 5, 2007
Politics has always been a ripe target for satirists since the dawn of the genre a few thousand years ago. Online today, you can hardly surf for five minutes without running into a satirical article lampooning some elected official in the media. But increasingly, it's the media itself that is proving a richer target.
For satire site Confusion Road, it was an article targeting the media which led to victory in the second annual HumorFeed Satire News Awards.
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Making Waves in Iowa: BSNews Takes Satire News Prize
(February 2006) Satire sites are started for a variety of reasons. Some are creative outlets for people whose primary occupations offer no comparable opportunity; others are primarily business ventures. Most fall somewhere in between. For Ben Spierenburg, however, his satire site represents something else: a stepping stone.
"I saw having my own satire website as a place where I could show what I could do," said Spierenburg, 26. "No one else will ever give you a chance."
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Remaking The LaLa Times: Evolution of a News Satire Site
(December 2005) In 2002, I moved with my family down to L.A. from Seattle. California was a trip, and Los Angeles was the epicenter of absurdity. But nobody was seriously making fun of California; something wasn't right in Lalaland. So I took it upon myself to fill the void. (I never intended to run a satire site. Does anyone?)
I waded into the murky waters of web design, and promptly proceeded to drown.
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For New Orleans Satire Site, Hurricane Not So Funny
(October 2005) By now the devastation left behind by Hurricane Katrina is familiar to everyone: images of destroyed houses, flooded streets, and refugees offer a compelling picture of the loss and long-term damage suffered by the area. The impact of this storm was not confined to conventional homes and businesses however. Although it's easy to forget, the virtual world of the Web has roots in the real one; and for one well-established satire website, the storm meant the end of an era.
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The Satire that Almost Became Law: The Dihydrogen Monoxide Scandal
(June 2004) Tom Way, the webmaster behind the original dihydrogen monoxide site, talks about scientific literacy, an old hoax, and how a California community almost fell for it.
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Satire Roundup: News Sources that Fell For It
(June 2004) From overseas newspapers to Deborah Norville, examples of mainstream media outlets who unwittingly ran a satire article as fact.
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