Is the Fake News the Real News?

            Comedy is a large and forever-growing part of the entertainment industry.  The demand for new jokes and material is increasing every year.  Comedians and writers are always looking for new jokes.  One way for comedians to come up with jokes is to watch the news and make jokes based on current headlines and stories.  This is a form of ‘culture jamming’ which is: A form of media activism that subverts and reworks the intended meaning of existing media texts, or parodies major corporations, public figures, and their media images.” (Shaughnessy & Stadler, 2012, 213).  This type of comedy is successful because the audience is able to relate to it, the material is fresh in their minds, and the headlines the joke is based off of it easily accessible.  The success of the comedy is well known within the industry and there is a surge of TV shows and websites that use this to their advantage.

Some people, including myself, use this as their source for news.  I am more inclined to watch it because watching the regular 6 o’clock news can get extremely boring and with the satirical shows I get a laugh while still getting caught up to date with the news.  However, if you’re someone who likes to know everything, then ‘fake news’ may not be the right option for you. 

The problem with the fake news is that there’s only a certain amount of news you can joke about, some stories are just off limits, terrorism, war and death wont be talked about on these shows.  Advertisements have also been poked fun at and this sometimes upsets the companies producing these ads.  In some cases, these companies take legal action, “There can be serious legal implications.  Culture jammers can be sued for brand tarnishment, brand infringement, copyright violation, and even defamation.” (p.224).

            There are many satirical shows currently being aired in North America, such as Canada’s Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and Royal Canadian Air Farce, and the United States’ Late Show with David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel live, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert, SNL and SNL’s Weekend Update hosted by Seth Meyers and Cecily Strong.  Adding to the list of fake news is the magazine The Onion.

            I’ve noticed the public responds to jokes more positively if they are able to relate to it, know what the joke is based off of, and if the story is fresh in their mind.  When a news story is popular, it’s almost impossible not to hear about it.  Take the (multiple) Rob Ford scandal(s) for example, it was all over the news, and if you didn’t see it on the news, you saw your friends on social media talking about it.  After hearing all the rage you knew you had to check it out, so you did and you couldn’t believe some of the thing he said. Time passes and now it is nighttime, the late shows were starting to come on, and you knew they had something to say about Rob Ford. All of these shows use the same formatting for jokes; they introduce the topic as if it they were actually delivering the news; they do this because they know the audience will enjoy it more if they understood what it was based off of, and at the end they add a joke or punch line that makes it funny. So they showed a clip of Rob Ford’s media interview and then the host makes a joke about it.  They gained such positive reviews and feedback because the story was fresh in their minds.

 O’Shaughnessy, M., & Stadler, J.. (2012). Media and Society. 5^th Ed. South Melbourne,            Oxford University Press.