Perhaps no comedian can do justice to this year’s election cycle, but America’s most successful parodist takes a crack at it.
James O’Keefe’s October Surprise
It wouldn’t feel like an election year without a fresh sting from right-wing culture jammer James O’Keefe.
“Everything We Know About the Latest James O’Keefe Video Sting”
by Philip Elliot
Time
October 18, 2016
The latest ‘gotcha” videos from conservative provocateur James O”Keefe”s Project Veritas Action have some shocking claims that, if they are true, would indicate Democrats are playing dirty to get Hillary Clinton elected.
In one video, a contractor seems to brag about sending homeless and mentally ill people to harass Republicans. Someone identified as a Democratic National Committee staffer appears to claim credit for pushing Republican contender Donald Trump”s rally in Chicago toward violence. In another, consultants look like they are describing a plan to bus voters across state lines and registering immigrants in the country illegally to vote.
But if O”Keefe”s previous efforts to infiltrate and expose his foes such as ACORN and NPR are to offer a hint, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. O”Keefe has previously spliced videos together to imply its subjects were saying things they were not.
Even so, the latest video has cost someone identified by the Democratic National Committee chairwoman “a temporary, regional sub-contractor” his job. Another established DNC vendor gave up his contract. Another protester who says she was at the Chicago melee linked herself to Clinton”s campaign, although she was paid for work in Arizona in the weeks before anything happened in Illinois.
The release of the videos made conservatives giddy that O”Keefe had claimed yet more scalps for his long-standing effort to show liberal hypocrisy through hidden-camera footage. And more embarrassing videos are expected to come before Election Day, O”Keefe promised. Donald Trump urged his audiences in Colorado on Tuesday to go online and watch them. Read more.
The Time of Our Lives?
An Internet Writer Breaks Up With Her Boyfriend Over Trump… You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!
The ferocious and funny Anna Merlan takes an impressively deep dive into the made-up career of Rachel Brewson, the JT LeRoy of womens-interest clickbait.
“The Team of Men Behind Rachel Brewston, the Fake Woman Whose Trump-Fueled Breakup Went Viral”
by Anna Merlan
Jezebel
October 4, 2016
In December 2015, readers at women”s site xoJane were enthralled and filled with all-caps rage by Rachel Brewson, a self-described “giant liberal” who boldly declared her love for a Republican named Todd. She described, in rapturous terms, how the couple”s political disagreements fueled an ecstatic third-date bipartisan fuck-fest that soon flowered into a real relationship.
Mid-date, they got into a “heated debate” about politics, Brewson wrote. They fought from wherever the date took place (she didn”t say), into the street, and into a cab. The discussion ended when Todd””who, as it turned out, was a gun-loving, Iraq-war-supporting libertarian””manfully invited himself up to her apartment.
“What followed was the best sex of my life up to that point,” Brewson wrote, whose author bio said she was a “dating editor” at a site called Review Weekly. “Somehow the political tension between us had transformed into sexual tension. I was hooked.”
The post was a modest success””it was shared just under 3,000 times on social media, and racked up 1,000 comments on xoJane itself (whose editor-in-chief is Jane Pratt of Sassy fame. The site was purchased by Time. Inc last fall). Many of those comments complained about Rachel”s privileged white-woman version of liberalism, which allowed her to ignore “petty differences”””her term””between her and Todd on issues like immigration.
“He flashed some money your way and you”re ready to label things like rape culture and systematic racism as “˜petty differences,”” one commenter fumed. “You aren”t as liberal as you want to believe you are.”
Three months later, the fairytale was over. Continue reading “An Internet Writer Breaks Up With Her Boyfriend Over Trump… You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!”
Tech-Savvy Satire for an Absurd Election Year
As The Onion has evolved from a college-town in-joke into an American satirical institution, it has taken a more active role in critiquing US politics. In the run-up to this year’s elections, it has souped up the media to better serve the message.
“The Onion ramps up speed of satire in Campaign 2016”
by Patrick Mairs
AP
September 11, 2016
Even satire has a shelf life.
In a presidential campaign with fast-changing headlines that sometimes defy belief, The Onion has managed to maintain its niche by becoming more agile, just like real news organizations.
The 28-year-old satirical media outlet, famous for creating fake news, has evolved with technology a bit like everyone else, including the news industry it parodies. For the first time, The Onion this summer sent staffers to the Democratic and Republican conventions.
“Although technology requires media to be much quicker, it also allows us to be a bit faster, and we’ve started training ourselves and developing ways that we can be a little more reactive, too,” said Matt Klinman, The Onion’s head writer for video.
Klinman was part of a team of staffers sent to the conventions in Philadelphia and Cleveland with a goal of mocking the news in something close to real time. Its video team quickly posted full-length clips of high-profile convention speeches on Facebook, complete with cable news-style graphics that included jokes and commentary.
“We’ve been sort of wanting to crack a way of doing live coverage as The Onion for a long time,” Klinman said.
The Onion’s sarcastic take on political gatherings apparently struck a chord on Facebook, where its convention videos outpaced those from major news outlets such as The New York Times, ABC, NBC and CNN for much of the two-week period when the meetings were held. The data come from Tubular Labs, an analytics firm The Onion uses to track video views.
The Chicago-based Onion is planning similar coverage for the upcoming presidential debates. Read more.