Gawker: Fake News

Barack Obama: President of Make-Believe

Pareene — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:42:40 EDT

Barack Obama talked to some governors about the economy Friday but all anyone really paid attention to was the weird pseudo-presidential seal on his podium. It is the eagle from the real-life presidential seal, holding arrows and an olive branch, but it says "Obama for America" on it and he replaced our country's Latin motto with "Yes We Can." So he's obviously un-patriotic, or arrogant, or something? It's going to be a big stupid issue. But even if it was just a bit of fun, we think it was clever. Because yes while everyone castigates the dude for pretending he's already the president, the news will show photos of him standing at that podium with that seal over and over again, making him look really presidential. Also it will remind people of how awesome the Ramones were. Now he'll be thrown in jail, just like they were. (An awesome YouTube video about this is after the jump.)

Maureen Dowd Unconcerned About Fake News

Pareene — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:26:58 EDT

Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd sat down with the kids at the Harvard Political Review and discussed the important issue of "real news" verus "fake news." The debate has raged for years now, and it pits the network evening news against Comedy Central, basically. The New York Times counts as "real news," even though they publish Dowd's column. Dowd, obv, is unworried about this pretend news crisis. Because, she would like to remind you, she invented it! Sort of.

"When I first started my columns," Dowd explains, "Michael Kinsley and Bill Safire said to me, 'You have to stop doing humor columns because you'll be seen as too girly.' And I said I would never take humor out of politics." Thank god she didn't listen to those buzzkills and stop doing funny columns! Think of how many tortured Sex & the City references and cutesy nicknames we were almost denied!

Perhaps Kinsley and Safire meant "You should stop doing humor columns because you don't do it as well as Molly Ivins," but they were too gentlemanly to spell it out?

Dowd isn't worried about the rise of "blogs" either because she doesn't know how to turn her iPod on. So she probably doesn't even know the terrible things some of us have been saying about her for years now.

Anyway we can't wait to see what new way she comes up with of calling Barack Obama a fag tomorrow.

[HPR]

"McCain Girls" A Prank, Mercifully

Ryan Tate — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:21:49 EDT

The three women who dubbed themselves the "McCain Girls" and made a series of YouTube videos on behalf of the Republican presidential candidate were working for 23/6, the "humor" site from IAC/Huffington Post, and their entire campaign was a joke. To hear 23/6 President Sarah Bernard tell it, the first video was supposed to be an obvious parody of the Obama Girl videos, but no one understood that. Then 23/6 decided to keep the "prank" going as long as possible, which turned out to be one month. McCain watched the video repeatedly, he told Fox News in the clip after the jump, but his description of it as "very entertaining" hints that he knew something was fishy.

[Times]

Never Forget '23/6'

Pareene — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:09:43 EST

23/6 is the political satire website from the Huffington Post and IAC. You know, sort of an Onion for the crowd that goes to College Humor for the biting wit. Now's your chance to get the sure-to-be-valuable commemorative 23/6 t-shirt! Look how excited one recipient is:

[Redacted]: we got mailed a t shirt from 23/6, that huffpo humor site. i am staring at it now! I bet it will generate "buzz."
pareene: hah
pareene: is it a "funny" shirt??
[Redacted]: on the front it has their tagline, and on the back it says "tagg romney is a stupid name"
[Redacted]: which is funny enough I guess
pareene: ha
[Redacted]: exactly the level of funny I was expecting
pareene: funny until south carolina
pareene: then billy beer
[Redacted]: i have no idea what to do with this shirt. it's fucking huge. it would be perfect for pre-slimmed down huck
[Redacted]: maybe that 500 lb policeman
pareene: it would be better if the shirt just said "more like FAG ROMNEY"
[Redacted]: ha
[Redacted]: that would be awesome
pareene: then you could wear that xtra large novelty t-shirt with pride

2nd bigwig lib backs out of 'Colbert'

Pareene — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:16:49 EST

Now Naomi Klein turned down Colbert! Didn't anyone tell her and Katrina that the Colbert writers' "strike" is just an elaborate meta-media joke? No...? [NYO, Previously]

23/6 Is On The Internet Now

Choire — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:21:22 EST

Guess what's live today? 23/6, the IAC-Huffpo comedy site that is pretty much two years in the making! Back in August, we pretty thoroughly trashed the beta. And now... here we are. (Launching a website on a Friday!?!? Do not ever do this, by the way.) So, really, what's to say? Well: Is there anything less funny than comedy? And: It's like Newser, but with irony! But we hope it's a huge success. We wouldn't want Barry Diller and HuffPo's Ken Lerer to lose any of their magical internet credibility. Also we hope the 23/6 kids don't hate working for 23/6 as much as we hear pretty much everyone currently can't stand working at HuffPo.

CNN Aims For Cutting-Edge, Misses By Several Dimensions

Maggie — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:40:55 EDT

CNN is opening up a new bureau! And a j-school! Larry King will teach! Weekly news meetings will be run by CNN staffers! Oh, except, all of these things will be happening in alleged virtual world Second Life. Beginning next week, says MediaWeek, CNN will open up shop in the 3-D virtual world, allowing its residents to submit i-Reports on "news" happening in Second Life, learn tricks of the trade from leading CNN personalities, and get their news from virtual newsstands throughout the network. "I love that we don't have to take things from the real world and force them in," Susan Grant, executive VP of CNN News Services, told MediaWeek. We love the total insanity of that rationale.

Must be Saturday: 'Times' Reports About Chumley's Wall Collapse, Own Blog Posts

jliu — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 12:46:08 EDT

Turns out rumors of West Village speakeasy Chumley's demise were rather premature. According to today's Times the bar's owners claim it'll be back up and running in a month or two. But what's auspicious for the ghosts of literary Chum-scrubbers Hemingway, Eliot, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck posed a problem for Times scribbler James Barron: How to pad what amounts to a report on a business putting up a "be back in 5" sign? It's the nineties, silly—turn to AOL:

Chumley's is a relic of the Roaring Twenties, but the memories are being shared the 21st-century way, over the Internet. Yesterday, after reports of the wall collapse, more than 30 people posted anecdotes about Chumley's on nytimes.com, some wondering about its future.

But if you thought reporting on your own website is innovative, its gets so much better, Gawker-style, after the jump...

As it happens, those "30 people post[ing] anecdotes" in "the 21st-century way" didn't quite do so spontaneously. And by "didn't quite do so spontaneously" I mean "The New York Times forced them to reminisce." Turning to the "Empire Zone" post in question Sewell "Sobriety is my Sobriquet" Chan announces:

James Barron of The Times is researching Chumley's and would love to hear readers' reminiscences — if you have them, please enter them in the comment box.

Remember the good old days when man-on-the-street interview used to require going on the street? No, we don't either. But, the best comment from the blog, sadly not utilized in Barron's published piece:

Personally I don't like bars and/or dives. The whole thing is so pointless. Now the NYC public library, there's a place.
— Posted by John Brady

Just like the Roaring Twenties. —Jon

A Wall Collapse at Chumley's Brings Forth a Cascade of Memories [NYT]
EARLIER: Goodbye, Old Chumley's