Features
All the News That’s Fit to Fake
Lines between real news and satire are intersecting and blending
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| Ian Reilly, a U of G PhD student and Guelph-Humber media studies instructor, looks at news parodies such as The Onion newspaper. PHOTO BY MARTIN SCHWALBE |
BY LORI BONA HUNT
When Tina Fey won an Emmy Award last month for her Saturday Night Live portrayals of Sarah Palin, no one was cheering louder than Ian Reilly. Not only is the U of G graduate student and Guelph-Humber media studies instructor a fan of the parody, but Fey’s win also supplies him with classroom material.
Reilly, a PhD student in literary studies/theatre studies, explores the phenomenon of “fake news,” the term used to describe the type of parody that is presented to look like mainstream news. Examples include satirical TV programs such as The Rick Mercer Report and Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, mock newspapers like The Onion and Fey’s SNL stint as the former Republican vice-presidential candidate.
Fey’s Emmy win “is a good example of just how popular, even ubiquitous, fake news can become,” says Reilly. “It can also be argued that fake news captures the Zeitgeist of contemporary culture.”
Indeed, although satire and fake news have been around for centuries, they’ve never been more widespread or popular than they are today. You can chalk that up to many factors, including the ease of transmitting information via the Internet and YouTube, he says.
Reilly notes that there are plenty of reports of “fake news” making its way into mainstream newspapers. The Boston Herald, for example, ran a story about former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney challenging Hillary Clinton, then a presidential hopeful, to a hunting contest (an editor later explained that the newspaper mistook the story as copy from the Associated Press).
But fake news is also garnering positive attention from the mainstream these days, winning “real” journalism and film kudos, he says. In May, The Onion, a satirical news organization that churns out fake news articles around the world, won a coveted Peabody Award, the oldest and most prestigious honour in electronic media. The Comedy Network’s The Daily Show and its spinoff, The Colbert Report, have also won Peabodys.
And the lines between real and fake news are intersecting and even blending, says Reilly. “I can’t tell you how many of my students, when I ask them who their favourite news anchor is, say: ‘Jon Stewart.’”
Stewart often zigzags between humorous and serious issues, especially as a media critic. “In this way, fake news has become the watchdog of the watchdog,” says Reilly.
Earlier this year, Stewart took MSNBC business guru Jim Cramer to task for giving people what Stewart called “silly, embarrassing and stupid” financial advice about the state of the U.S. economy. He claimed Cramer shirked his journalistic duty by believing corporate rhetoric rather than doing his own investigative work. Cramer later appeared on Stewart’s show for a serious interview.
All of this says a lot about the role fake news is playing in society, which is precisely why it’s caught Reilly’s scholarly interest. “It’s become a cultural phenomenon, so I want to try and understand its importance and broader implications.”
One question he’s often asked is whether fake news is enriching culture or contributing to society’s cynical agenda.
“Cynicism is healthy,” he says. “We need to be critical, have a critical perspective on the world. Otherwise, we risk missing the point entirely, becoming complacent and not questioning dominant institutions like the news media.”
It’s also the root of fake news, says Reilly. Normal everyday people become disenchanted with conventional information sources and look for a more critical, less elite perspective.
“It can be regarded as a form of investigative journalism because fake news is very much invested in the process of digging up and recontextualizing information,” he says. “And if it has comedic value, so much the better.”
Fake news also encourages news consumption, he says. Articles in The Onion or reports on programs like The Daily Show require a certain level of awareness and knowledge of current events and politics.
“Without a strong baseline of information, you’re not going to get the joke, and nothing’s worse than not being in on the joke.”
In addition, if something catches a person’s eye on a fake news report, he or she “might appreciate the humour and be encouraged to seek out information on the issue to better understand it,” says Reilly.
In this way, fake news is shifting from being mere entertainment to a serious form of public discourse, he says.
“It’s becoming the primary source of information for young people between 18 and 31. There are very serious dimensions to this cultural form we love.”