America Ready for Government to Start Lying Again“What I want is for someone to tell me with a straight face that the GDP is through the roof so that I can feel better and instantly forget what all these terms even mean.”
Rupert Murdoch Peels an OnionLost in all the Wall Street Journal drama is the news of Rupert Murdoch getting his paws on another bastion of American journalism: The Onion. The beloved if slightly over-the-hill humor newspaper has signed on to provide exclusive content to MySpace, including audio podcasts and video from its misbegotten Onion News Network offshoot. The paper announced the partnership via press release filled with the usual barrage of jokes — and with a buzz-kill addendum (“the foregoing is a satirical press release published by MySpace, Inc…”) that suggests the big-league nature of the deal. Despite its shaggy pose, the Onion boasts dead-serious print circulation (3 million copies) and online traffic (4 million visitors each month). One can’t help but feel troubled, though. The newspaper industry’s panicked attempts to branch out into every new platform from social networks to mobile phones should be prime satire fodder; the Onion, in doing the same thing with the same zeal (anyone remember “The Onion on Your PDA” ads?), is losing just a bit of its outsider soul every time it oh-so-self-effacingly bites a new fad.
The Onion Brings Its Irreverent Satire to MySpace [News.com]
Earlier: New ‘Onion’ Fake News: Actually Fake, Not So Funny
New ‘Onion’ Fake News: Actually Fake, Not So FunnyHere’s the remarkable thing about the Onion News Network, the satire stalwart’s first foray into video content: It’s the first televisual product to literally fit the wrongheaded moniker “fake news.” The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, which are regularly saddled with that descriptor, don’t fake the news; they fake the format. ONN — as of this writing, less a network than a Web page with four clips and a Dewar’s ad — finally takes that extra step. Its news items are, indeed, mocked-up rather than simply mocked. This means that both the anchors and the subjects are played, hammily, by actors, and the “news footage” is as scripted as the banter around it. Sadly, though, it is not particularly well scripted, nor particularly amusing.
