Is the Onion actually America’s finest news source?
Have you noticed that some of the best reporting nowadays is satire? I feel like I learn most of the news I know from reading newspapers online, but I’m unusual: most people, especially young people, seem to get their news from the Daily Show and Colbert, as well as the Onion.
And it’s not just the writing, which is generally excellent and intelligent, as well as hilariously entertaining. It’s the topics themselves that are incisive and that get to the heart of what’s ridiculous or dysfunctional about our financial, cultural, and political systems.
What if we started a newspaper that took its cues directly from the Onion, and rewrote every article in a straight, anti-satire way? Would that newspaper be better or worse than the New York Times? I claim it would be more bizarre but also more relevant to our lives. It may miss entire swaths of typical news coverage but then again it would cover certain things in a more holistic light.
For example, what would a anti-satirist do with this article? Or this one? Just having someone seriously articulate why these things are so funny would be a good start, and an article I’d love to read.
mathbabe 
ROFL?
It has always been the social role of satire to point out uncomfortable truths – (Think Swift or W S Gilbert, for example). The difference in social role gives rise to the difference in agenda: news will tell you that the Emperor is parading his new clothes but satire will tell ask you whether they exist? (And note that this is the case regardless of the answer to the question).
The picture reminds me of a news item a couple of years back in which the (UK) Consumer’s Association tested anti-wrinkle creams. They found that many expensive creams were just moisturizers with sun screen, but that one, and only one, product really worked. It was a cheap ‘own brand’ – No7 by Boots the Chemist. Everyone was upset. The big cosmetic companies were upset because they were being revealed as charlatans while Boots was upset because they that the url=http://www.mhra.gov.uk/Committees/Medicinesadvisorybodies/CommitteeonSafetyofMedicines/index.htm>Committee on Safety of Medicines might want to reclassify their product as a drug, and therefore require full clinical trials of safety and efficacy.
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With much respect toward the Onion/Daily Show for great execution, I would like to add that the job of pointing out flaws is pretty easy to do. I remember being an undergraduate and being convinced that I was twice as smart as any of my teachers since I could find all sorts of errors in their lectures. Years later, the table was turned and I didn’t feel so smart. Another example would be the fact that sarcasm is much easier to pull off than say Jim Carey style comedy…
So I’d say that the Onion appears more intelligent/informative since they get to hand pick content to make fun of.
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