News Satire in History
Richard A. Locke successfully increased sales of The Sun newspaper in 1835 by publishing a series of six articles, now known as the Great Moon Hoax, under the name of a contemporary astronomer.
Author Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was employed as a newspaper reporter before becoming famous as a novelist and in this position he published many hoax articles. He left two separate journalism positions, Nevada (1864) fleeing a challenge to duel and San Francisco fleeing outraged police officials, because his satire and fiction were often taken for the truthful accounts they were presented as. Of this experience he said, "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." Ironically, the accuracy of many newspaper and autobiographical accounts used to follow the early life of Samuel Clemens are in doubt.
Newspapers still print occasional news satire features, in particular on April Fools' Day. This news is specifically identified somewhere in the paper or in the next day as a joke.
In 1934, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released a series of ten one-reel theatrical shorts called Goofy Movies, which included "Wotaphony Newsreel," a newsreel parody that paired actual footage with a mocking, deadpan narration.
Also in 1934, halfway through a Kraft Music Hall radio show, Dean Taylor ("Others collect the news, Dean makes it!") narrated a fake newsreel which began with a report on the New York Giants and Philadelphia Phillies being cancelled due to bad weather, and baseball season being rescheduled to when farmers need rain.
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Famous quotes containing the words news, satire and/or history:
“The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Comedy has to be done en clair. You can’t blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)