Real or Satire?

Copy and paste any article URL below. We'll tell you if it's real.

theepochtimes.com -

The Epoch Times is both real and really interesting to read. Originally, it was directed towards Chinese readers living abroad, countering through its own reporting and opinion pieces what it considers to be CCP propaganda. There is some concern that their primarily negative stance towards the CCP colors their work too much, but considering the closed nature of China’s microcosm,…



abefinklestein.com -

From their About Page: "Abe Finklestein is a Bonafide Sports Humour Website created by South Carolina native Beefy “funny” Barnes a South Carolina import and thugged out nerd who now resides in Phila’s University City." Some of it gave me a good chuckle a couple times.



citizenschwartz.com -

This is a political satire/humor site for “The Citizen,” a.k.a. BJ Schwartz; however, it has a serious side. Those more serious posts are under the banner of “The Serious Citizen,” but they are op-ed pieces and shouldn’t be believed whole-heartedly as factual, rather, one’s opinion. From the About page: [. . . BJ] harkens back to his college days doing…



TMZHipHop.com -

Truthfully, “satire” is giving TMZ Hip Hop too much credit. Shocking news articles do not satire make! TMZHipHop banks on the familiarity and popularity of TMZ and Worldstar Hip Hop, likely in the hopes that adding the two together would make us doubly believe them. They can certainly be entertaining. But real . . . ? They posted an article…



newsmutiny.com -

Their site tag says it all: “Satire for the wise. News for the dumb.”



dismagazine.com -

I like their logo. I also like how all of the main sections start with “dis-“, except “dystopia” — which draws the eye to it. They could have gone the route of forcing the motif with a spelling change (“distopia”) but by choosing not to, I actually want to read that section first. Dismagazine.com is a collection of music, art,…



realfarmacy.com -

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…



nationalreport.com -

National Report doesn’t return any website. Try our article about NationalReport.net



cityworldnews.com -

You can usually determine a site’s validity in about 5 seconds by looking at three things: disclaimers located at the footer of the front-/home-page (if you’re lucky and the site actually has one!); the number (and sometimes type) of ads on the site; images for the articles. So when we went to the article submitted for City World News (Handicapped…



dailysnark.com -

As with comedy, timing is everything for “satire” and ClickBait sites. Take this article submitted for The Daily Snark: Jason Pierre-Paul Blows Off Other Hand After His Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Explodes. With Samsung’s ‘Exploding‘ Galaxy Note 7 recall in the news and being banned on all U.S. Flights, it’s very easy to believe something like this. Until, that is,…



enduringvision.com -

Enduring Vision graciously reveals its satirical nature in its own logo. But read on to find out why we really like their site!



theunrealtimes.com -

While based out of India, The Unreal Times has their satirical nature plastered on less than seven places: the subtitle on their website; on Google search results for The Unreal Times where the same subtitle sits — so I’m counting it twice!; the Footer on their website; the About Us section on their website; the separate disclaimer on that same…



naturalnews.com -

If there's some sort of civil unrest, impending cataclysm, or upcoming plague, NaturalNews.com is selling something for it. But are they real, satire, or something worse?



theonion.com -

The Onion is one of the only satire website on the internet that does satire really well. If you didn’t realize that an Onion article was satire, you probably weren’t properly reading (and subsequently laughing).



facebook.com/C4MB10.0 -

Christians for Michelle Bachman is a satirical slam against both Michelle Bachman and her staunchest supporters. Its typical m.o. is to combine some right-wing talking point with spelling/grammar mistakes. While this sort of appeal to ridicule is fallacious, it does lend itself to some well-crafted comedy.



TMZWorldNews.com -

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…



mzansidaily.co.za -

Mzansi Daily is South Africa’s Daily News Website. It’s hard to verify whether or not some of the stories are real, especially the ones that are specific to South Africa that isn’t internationally reported news. But they have enough actual global news (“UK Woman Caught Urinating In Busy Street“, which, damn) sprinkled about their site that makes me think that…



callthecops.net -

Self-branded as the “27th most trusted source for Public Safety News, Call the Cops is a satire of the current state of Law Enforcement, Fire Fighting and Emergency Medical work, per their Twitter profile. From their About page: This site is a satire of the current state of Law Enforcement, Fire Fighting and Emergency Medical work. Stories posted here are…



motherjones.com -

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…



bigstory.ap.org -

bigstory.ap.org is a wing of the Associated Press news agency. News collected by the AP is then published by more than 1,700 newspapers and over 5,000 television and radio stations. But . . . how reliable are they?



Copy and paste any article URL below. We'll tell you if it's real.