On Borowitz's Popular Site, Even Grim News Is Fodder for Satire

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ^ | May 5, 2003 | MATTHEW ROSE

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On April 8, the biggest story for every major newspaper and TV network was the fate of Saddam Hussein after U.S. attacks on his compound.

Andy Borowitz filed this report: "U.S. Kills Saddam Four More Times; Pledges to Continue Killing Him Until Regime Is Gone."

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From page 1 of today's Journal...

[Fixit]

Link:

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

[George W. Bush]

Mr. Borowitz says he likes stories that hint at things people believe to be true, such as "Iraq Agrees to Weapons Inspections; Cheney Begs Them to Reconsider." Some think his stories really are true. When he wrote about O.J. Simpson doubting his own innocence, Court TV called Newsweek, the magazine says, to verify the story. Last week, a TV reporter in Cleveland called Entertainment Weekly asking whether it was really true, as Mr. Borowitz had reported, that French President Jacques Chirac had posed naked for its cover, a la the Dixie Chicks.

That "professional" journalists are so gullible should tell us a lot about their intelligence and training. And their fitness to report factual news, let alone editorialize on political matters.

Team Bush must have shocked their delicate sensibilities and rocked their little world. They've run amok.

[NYCVirago]

Longtime New Yorker writer Lillian Ross is one of several unofficial mentors to the site, scolding Mr. Borowitz if she thinks he has gone too far. She isn't fond of jokes making fun of Michael Jackson, such as Mr. Borowitz's: "Michael Jackson Admits Plastic Surgery; France Unconvinced." Says she: "I tend to cringe a bit when somebody who is in that kind of emotional trouble is picked on."

Oh geez. Michael Jackson is hardly a victim!