While TopekasNews.com might look legit, you’ll quickly find that the stories are exaggerated or just plain fake. Well . . . that is, if you can even pull up their website, which routinely returns an ‘Service Temporarily Unavailable’ server error. (Seriously! Every other link-click returns a server error. What is this? Satire Amateur Hour??)
Spoiler-Alert: We think American News is satire. You read that right: we're marking American News "satire". Not just ''fake news", but honest to goodness satire . . . of a sort. But lest you're quick to judge and judge us harshly, here us out:
For us, cartelpress.com resolves to www.huzlers.com, which we’ve previousy covered as “satire” (read: fake). In all likelihood, cartelpress.com, with its similar design, is similarly fake, set up simply to lure social media users into clicking on them and generating ad revenue. You can read more about Huzlers.com at this Fusion story from 2015. Remember: Huzler described themselves as “the most…
UPDATED REVIEW 1-10-2017: Our previous review of addictinginfo.org came when we had a simple binary ranking system. Our conclusion has been updated to match the new system. You’ll be seeing a lot of updated reviews as we continue to comb through the database. Sometimes, a news story has enough “clickability” on its own merits that it doesn’t warrant much alteration.…
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.
allenwestrepublic.com site is a conservative news-based opinion site that supports "Allen West and his level of conservatism." But is there more to it? Refreshingly, there isn't. Read more:
Based out of Cincinnati, Derf’s website is too colorful to be taken seriously. “Maybe they figure that colorful news sites will grab your attention better?” Eh, fair enough. From their About page: DERF Magazine.com is the premier provider of humor and satire content in Cincinnati. Derf is dedicated to making fun of everything!
By their own admission: Raw Story is a progressive news site that focuses on stories often ignored in the mainstream media. While giving coverage to the big stories of the day, we also bring our readers’ attention to policy, politics, legal and human rights stories that get ignored in an infotainment culture driven solely by pageviews. Their original reporting has…
breakingnews247.net is another in a long list of prank sites (aka Lazy ClickBait). The site is upfront about what it is ("Prank your friends now!") but if you're not paying attention, you could get caught-out!
According to their About Page, the The Daily Meal was founded by a former CEO of Forbes.com, Jim Spanfeller. The site covers culinary topics with their articles, videos, and special reports. Not sure why anyone would think a recipe for Spicy Vegetarian Chili Recipe would be satirical. I don’t think The Daily Meal is being ironic when they call it…
At the time this site was submitted, there is no WorldTruthTV.com. There is, however, a WorldTruth.tv, which is a much better URL — if not any better information. So . . .
There's no easy find for News Chicken. But there are clues to the site's legitamacy once you look at some of their original -- er, sorry, "original" -- stories.
The tag-line for Rock City Times is “Arkansas’ 2nd most unreliable news source.” Their footer says: “The content on here is presented as fictional news with an intent for humor.” And to drive the point, in that same footer is the link: “Help! I am confused or offended!” which links to the Wikipedia page on satire. The article submitted to…
The story submitted to us for America News Project was this one: Small Indiana Town To Change Name To Avoid Clinton Reference. Their About Us page features a fair bit of cheek: As you likely well know, the National Report and Daily Currant are both satire sites. (If you did not know this, feel free to click those links and…
UPDATE 01/31/2017: Categorizing madworldnews.com as “Real” never felt quite right with us. At the time of the initial review, we had a binary grading system: either a site was real, or it was satire. Mad World News didn’t quite sit comfortably in that either-or system. Where do we place highly opinionated commentary sites that commented on real news? But now…
The Washington Times, not to be confused with The Times, has been around since the early 80s. Many consider it a right-of-center counterpoint to The Washington Post. [Editorial Note: In our haste, we referred to Washington Times as a “left-of-center” when it is, as the rest of this post states, actually considered right-of-center.] The magazine had heavy ties with Republican…
NewsWire-24.com is based in the U.K. and geared mostly towards that audience. We looked at two stories, as best we could, to determine if it's real or not. Read onward:
As of this writing, their top story was Rock And Roll Hall Again Denies Johnny Bravo. Which is pretty funny in and of itself. From their About page: For the best in online satire of news and current events, one needs only to turn to CAP News for a full day’s laugh in just 60 seconds. [. . .] The…
Mr. Conservative ran this headline not too long ago: “Obama Admin. Hands Out Pamphlet: “What To Do When The Veteran In Your Classroom Attempts A Mass Shooting”” The source? Duffel Blog, which we’ve covered before. And then they ran: “FBI Raids Conservative Site For Writing Article About Obama’s Birth Certificate” Its source? The National Report. In two minutes, I’ve found…
Not much else can be said about The Inconsequential that their very own (horribly written) About page doesn’t already cover; namely: “Never mind the quantity feel the wit.” They do, however, have a lovely dictionary (Dikipaedia) of neologisms and portmanteaux that they’ve coined and/or used in their articles.
