Fake News

Satire or satirical news is not a new invention. Why, if you go on “The Onion’s” website, one can even read news of their premier edition – from 1783! Here it is: http://www.theonion.com/content/historicalarchives/Oct-6-1783/1

(Except…not really)

I wonder how many people would really admit they get their news from satire shows and news sources, like The Onion, Weekend Update, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Mercer Report and so on. The truth of the matter is, no matter how skewed or satirical the angle of the story is, sometimes the satirical version is more reputable or can reveal more about the truth of the story than what we get off of our straight edge evening newscast on CBS Evening News.

In John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton’s book, “Toxic Sludge is Good For You”, they talk about Michael Moore’s satirical show “TV Nation”, and the controversial episode they talked about the toxic sludge dumping done in Sierra Blanca. The show, while making light of the situation, interviewed the suits behind the issue at hand as well as local residents. Apparently they did such a good job that Merco (the bad guys) filed a $33 million dollar lawsuit against one of the interviewees as well as the production company. So the truth comes out – hard hitting journalism is actually satire in disguise?

Returning to my earlier remark about how many people likely get all/most of their actual information of what’s going in the world from satirical news sources – just look at Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live. Now in the midst of the upcoming US election, look at the hoopla that comes with a candidate appearing on the show. When Sarah Palin appeared on the last show (19/10/2008), SNL had it’s biggest ratings in decades. This surely doesn’t happen when a candidate appears on a formal news program. Maybe it has something to do with how much we like seeing our public officials act like idiots (I mean when they’re off the job…).

But also considering the age we’re in, how much are these “news” (I’m almost tempted to call it quasi-news, but then I remember how much more truth it tends to carry than what the “real” news does) shows and sites really influence people’s political and otherwise opinions. Returning to SNL and the election, how much does a politician’s appearance affect their public persona? How much does it force a politician to become, well, charismatic and even develop a sense of humour? To quote McLuhan, “TV is revolutionizing every political system in the Western world. For one thing, it's creating a totally new type of national leader, a man who is much more of a tribal chieftain than a politician.”[1]. McLuhan goes on to talk about Castro, JFK and others who used the advent of TV to make or break their political careers.

And though McLuhan wrote before the present-day election (though not before Weekend Update, because Chevy Chase has been making fun of Gerry Ford far longer than that), we now have this whole other aspect of television – and no, I haven’t forgotten about the internet/print – that politicians have to worry about. For goodness sake, we have a whole channel, The Comedy Network, with a portion of that devoted to satire news (lest we forget The Daily Show, The Colbert Repor[t], and so on). Though the politicians may not agree, but I think that we are extremely fortunate to have cleaver satirists to weed out the bore and muse us with the true goings on of today’s news. Goodness knows I get everything I know about the world today from The Onion.

Stauber, John, and Rampton, Sheldon. Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lie and the Public Relations Industry. 1st ed. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995.

[1] Playboy, "The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan." Playboy Magazine March 1969. 28 Sep 2008 . <http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~gisle/links/mcluhan/pb.html>.