It’s hard to categorize this one. Conservapedia is a wiki-encyclopedia project with an extremely far-Right agenda/slant. Their goal is to counter the “liberal bias” of the media in general and Wikipedia specifically. So it’s hard to consider it “real news” because of it. Though it’s definitely not satire. One of the interesting editorial requirements (or requests) from Conservapedia is that…
True Activist is another tough one to categorize, using our binary system. It’s not satire, but it’s not exactly real news, in the sense that you and I think of news. It’s a repository of blogs and stories that fit its philosophical views. Same as Real Farmacy. Their process seems to be: Find an article that fits our view; Reshare…
Houston, we have a problem . . . The Melbourneer is primarily a depository of cool images, GIFs, and the like. Their page is separates into topics just as “Cool Man,” “GIFs,” and my personal favorite, “Suddenly!” Some of their images may be too awesome to believe, such as Kumi Yamashita’s “Portrait Made From a Single Thread Wrapped Around Thousands…
TMZ World News is likely banking on the familiarity of TMZ to add credibility (which for some is part of the joke in and of itself). But on their contact us page: Tmzworldnews.com is the most notorious satire website in the world with the most shocking Satire News to keep its visitors in a state of disbelief. In fact, TMZWorldNews.com…
By the site’s own admission: The project’s name is an ironic reversal of portmanteau “mass-media” (media for the masses) [. . .] . The website mediamass.net is the medium of our satire to expose with humour, exaggeration and ridicule the contemporary mass production and mass consumption that we observe Also it will not only mock the producers [. . .]…
africametro.com's stated goal is to "provide access to a full range of what Africans themselves are saying, thinking and publishing [. . .]." But are they real or satire?
Slate Magazine is an online current affairs and culture magazine. Inititally created in 1996 under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN, it is now managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by Graham Holdings Company to develop and manage web-only magazines. The article presented to us was: Abolish the Week! It’s unnatural. It’s unnecessary. Why…
Business Insider has an interesting piece on how liberal or conservative other news agencies are — or, specifically, the audiences of the agency. They are often accused of leaning left; however, looking at their front page on 12-6-2016, it seems fairly balanced to us. http://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-syria-talks-ankara-2016-12 ‘The US is totally out of these [Turkey-Syria Peace] talks, and they’re pretty angry about…
The headlines on this site are pretty obviously fake, but depending on the writer, they can sometimes read fairly credible, at first glance. At the very gutter of the page (footer, for all you net-savvy folks) you’ll find their disclaimer: Unconfirmed Sources political satire and news story parodies as represented above are written as satire or parody. They are, of…
Imagine The Colbert Report television show, without the laughing audience, the obvious wink-wink of the host, and the over-the-top comedic stylings of Comedy Central writers, and you have Christwire. Christwire highlights the excesses of American Christian conservatives through its satire. Ironically — or expectably, depending on your point of view — Christian Conservatives tend to mistake Christwire articles as true…
Real Farmacy is difficult to categorize. They’re not satire, but they’re not exactly real, either. Or, should I say, they’re not exactly factual. Oh, they’ll post mostly-real; or real stories, but it’ll be a story that’s 10 years old (see below); or it will be a mostly-true story with misleading headlines, which isn’t something that is entirely new to anyone…
DuhProgressive is one of the flurry of sites that came to us about 2 years too late. The site was admittedly satirical, but has since “admitted defeat.” Their site is still up, with articles intact, but they are no longer producing new content. From their Mission Statement: [. . .] Duh Progressive is also here to do is prove that…
UPDATE – 08-03-2016: We have slightly revised our judgment on Breitbart in light of their consistent policy of going well beyond headline-hyperbole with their articles into downright lying when it suits them: Obama’s post-Ramadan statement giving thanks to the “achievements and contributions of Muslim Americans to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy”…
“I thought I can help [Trump] to win the presidency by creating a website. So I created endingthefed.com. I feel sorry for posting some ‘fake’ news. I removed them but at that time, I didn’t really know about them being fake.”
I guess we are to consider Patheos.com to be the WebMD of religion. Never mind the implications of that analogy; simply take it at face value. The grisly story that was submitted to us for review, “Christian zealot beheads teen for practicing witchcraft,” is unfortunately true. And while Patheos is fond of citing The Washington Times a lot — itself,…
Lercio.it was going to be another site that we’d pass on making commentary on. But one of the first images I was presented when I visited http://www.lercio.it/ was this one: So how hard can it be? Even better than the image, though, is the quote that Lercio is able to get from our Lord and Savior: “Sono cose che succedono.”…
BuzzFeed is an Internet news media company that specializes in a wide variety of topics like politics, DIY, animals, humor, and business. While it’s had its fair share of scandal — notably with plagiarism — and they have a pretty extensive humor section that includes some heavy satire. Unlike other sites, they do mark all humor as such. While they…
By their own admission, the National Review is a right-leaning site/magazine known for “up-to-the-minute conservative commentary on politics, news, and culture.” Author William F. Buckley Jr. Buckley founded the magazine in the early 50s and, himself, was known for several controversies: He co-authored a book defending McCarthyism and referred to HIV/AIDS as a “gay curse,” calling for immediate sterilization of…
Mother Jones reports investigative and breaking news on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. It might be snarky and sarcastic at times, but it’s legit. From their Facebook page: Mother Jones is an award-winning nonprofit news organization that publishes in-depth investigative reporting, game-changing breaking news, and innovative coverage across politics, the environment, health, human rights, culture, and more. Their…
The definition of specious: 1. Having the ring of truth or plausibility but actually fallacious: a specious argument. 2. Deceptively attractive. So it’s in the website title.
