Attention media commentators: have to deliver yet another “future of journalism” keynote at the University of East Bumcrack? Here’s one CJR prepared earlier. Just add water.
Satire
The biggest brands of 2090
Who will be the Apples, Nikes and Cokes 80 years from now? Media writer Simon Dumenco takes a stab: a successor to Twitter named after teen popstar Justin Bieber, a McDonald’s-Disney hybrid, and, of course, Google, which owns everything.
Watch out Stewart and Colbert: Onion News Network is coming
Satirical newspaper The Onion is getting its own TV show — and if it’s anywhere near as good as its fantastic online videos, it will be an absolute ripper.
PHOTO GALLERY: Vintage Spy covers
Former editor of the now defunct satirical magazine Spy, Kurt Anderson has put together a great gallery of every cover from his tenure at the rag.
Fake Steve Fielding: The devil and Peter Garrett
“You can take the devil music out of the boy but you can’t take the boy out of the devil music” says Fake Steve Fielding: Peter Garrett brought rock and roll into Parliament — and now four tradesmen are dead.
Porridge time for Garrett
Only one thing is certain from the foil insulation debacle, says Bernard Keane: Peter Garrett must go to prison. The mere act of providing funding for a voluntary program of household insulation surely makes him guilty of manslaughter.
Forget about My School — what about MyHospital.com.au?
Health economist Gavin Mooney — tongue firmly in cheek — imagines if the government applied the “logic” of its My School website to hospitals, comparing what comes out, but definitely not what goes in.
The Christmas card the Obamas should have sent
Slate’s Christopher Beam was pretty unimpressed with this year official Obama family holiday card, so he went to the effort of penning them a much better, far more entertaining, version.
A Christmas Carol for Gordon Brown
On Christmas Eve, Gordon Brown is visited at Downing Street by three spirits and the spectre of Tony Blair. Bah, humbug!
How the Fake AP Stylebook took on the media, and took over Twitter
The latest darling of the Twitterverse is the Fake AP Stylebook — an Onion-esque spoof of media style guides dispensing advice like: “When burying the lede always eliminate any witnesses.” Journalist joke? Yup, but non-hacks are loving it too.
Never mind Hockey, I have a Fielding feeling
I’m a global warming sceptic, I’ve got lots of leadership experience, and I scrub up pretty good on the telly, writes Fake Stephen Fielding: why not run for the Opposition leadership myself?
How the Grinch stole Google News
A Web 2.0 twist on Dr Suess’s classic Christmas tale: Every Who down in Whoville liked Google a lot, But the Grinch, who lived up in a penthouse, did not…
VIDEO: Sesame Street unveils a new character: “Spill O’Reilly”
Conservative pundits recently accused Sesame Street of being “anti-Fox News”. But the Muppet Masters know exactly how to work the PR machine and spin this one in their favour with a new character.
Fake Stephen Fielding: PMS and a One World Government
Fake Stephen Fielding has been following the climate change and Emissions Trading Scheme debate very closely, and is very excited at the prospect of a One World Government.
The best Mad Men web spoofs
As we all eagerly anticipate the return of Don, Peggy, Pete, Betty and the gang to our screens for the third series of Mad Men, check out the best spoofs of the show that have surfaced online.
Better than real news: how The Onion is written
The folks at satirical newspaper and website The Onion have a novel way of creating “stories”: they write the headlines first, then fill out the article (just like many real newspapers, we suspect). The NYT sits in on the surprisingly complex creative process.
Minutes from a Hey Hey Production Meeting
Ben Pobjie presents minutes from Hey Hey’s last Production Meeting, where a creative decision was made between “Jackson Jive”, “Schmuckie the Jew With The Giant Nose”, “The Asian Driver Song”, and “Al-Boomah, the Exploding Arab Clown”.
Dowd: Gandhi wuz robbed! Bono too!
Maureen Dowd’s got the real story of what went down when Bill Clinton and George Dubya Bush heard about Barack Obama getting the Nobel Peace prize. It wasn’t pretty.
Video of the Day: Ruddhide!
A lovely little parody on the classic Rawhide theme.
Meg McCabe: Letter from Tehran
Wonkette presents a dispatch from Iran by “Meg McCabe” — who bears a striking similarity to The Daily Beast’s Meghan McCain.
Mocking Obama: only The Onion get it
Satirical newspaper The Onion are the only ones who have worked out how to send up the new President, says The Economist.
The rise and fall of Fake Stephen Conroy
The identity of Australia’s most famous Twitter satirist, Fake Stephen Conroy, has been revealed as a Telstra employee. But just how well is Telstra handling it? asks Duncan Riley.
