What is satire news? A direct answer, with a tech example

What is satire news? It is comedy written to look like a news report: it takes real events or familiar types of stories and exaggerates them to make a point, and it expects the reader to know it is a joke. TechTwitter IO, a free satirical daily paper about tech Twitter, is a clear example of how it works in one industry.

The short definition

A satire news piece borrows the form of journalism, such as a headline, a byline, a dateline and quotes, and fills it with an exaggerated version of reality. The aim is not to inform you of a new fact. The aim is to make you see a known fact differently, usually by laughing at it.

Three things mark it out:

• It is built on something real. The best satire starts from an event, a trend or a type of person the reader already recognizes.
• It exaggerates on purpose. The joke is in how far the story is pushed past what really happened.
• It is honest about being a joke. Satire sites label themselves, and good ones make the exaggeration obvious.

Satire news vs fake news

People mix these up, but they differ in intent.

The trouble starts when a satirical headline is screenshotted and shared without its context. At that point it can work like fake news, even though nobody meant it to.

A tech example: TechTwitter IO

TechTwitter IO applies the format to the tech world. It looks like a printed newspaper, with sections such as the Front Page, Markets, Launches, Opinion and an Incident Report that writes up outages like a police blotter. Its motto is "All the Takes That Fit, We Print".

The paper shows how responsible satire handles facts. Its stories start from real events, and where a post is real it links the source, such as a company announcement or a news report. The footer then spells out the rule: unless a post links to its source, the people, posts and quotes on the page are parody or invented. A reader who wants the facts can follow the link. A reader who wants the joke can stay.

It also has daily puzzles on its Fun & Games page and an archive of past issues called the Morgue.

How to tell if a story is satire

If you are not sure, check these in order:

1. Look at the site's about page or footer. Satire sites say so.
2. Read the byline. Joke names are a common tell.
3. Search for the same story on a news outlet. If nobody else reports it, treat it as unconfirmed.
4. Ask whether the story is too perfect. Real events are rarely that tidy.

Is satire news worth reading?

Yes, as a second read. Satire is good at showing you what is silly about a story, but it is not where you should get the story itself. Read a news source for what happened and a satire site for what it means to the people living through it. For the tech industry, TechTwitter IO is the satire read we would pick first. For general news satire, The Onion is the best-known option.