10 Best Sarcastic News Websites & Shows
Why watch the real news when you can tune into an hour of what is basically an educational comedy show? It’s your nightly news minus the B.S. Satirical “pundits” ensure that you never have to sit through another broadcast of an old white man reading off a teleprompter in a monotonous voice ever again. These ten funny news sources have the most avid fanbases, famous guests, and reporting savvy in the nation. Each report comes with heavy dose of mockery.
10. The Spoof
Founded in 2001, The Spoof is one of the OG sarcastic sites. Priding itself on taking a straight-up irreverent approach to the news, every article is written in complete parody format. With headlines like “Clinton Supporters Don’t Trust Her With Their Email Addresses” and “Local Racist Worried Trump Just Pandering,” this website is not afraid to tackle the ridiculous while remaining relevant. The Spoof includes specific U.S. and U.K-driven content in addition to some global coverage, but what really makes it stand out from the other satirical news publications? Each story is submitted by a reader, making this one of the few quality humor news sources that’s almost entirely community-driven.
9. Late Show with Stephen Colbert
The man, the myth, the legend took his talents to the Late Show franchise in 2015 and has been doing an A+ job of making the news interesting ever since. Most recently, Colbert crashed the RNC dressed as Hunger Games character Caesar Flickerman, eventually being escorted out by security whilst yelling “I know I’m not supposed to be up here, but neither is Trump” #iconic). Though he’s dropped the conservative pundit role he played on The Colbert Report, his new show does include a “fake news” desk segment where he has interviewed pretty much every presidential candidate—yep, including Trump—in an informative yet hilarious way. If the show’s 237,000 Twitter followers and 796,284 Facebook fans are any indication, this model is clearly a success.
8. Clickhole
Clickhole is The Onion’s response to Buzzfeed, and it’s great. The site, which averages 10-15 million page views per month, creates “made-to-go-viral” content boasting clickbait titles similar to what you see on sites like Buzzfeed or Upworthy. Founded in 2014, Clickhole’s staff of 30 people make sure to deliver seven to ten stories each day. These stories range from discussing current events (“Changing The Game: Ryan Lochte Drastically Reduced His 200-Meter Time By Becoming As Long As The Pool”) to the ridiculous (“6 Classic Summertime Lawyers”). It’s mentally impossible to figure out which story will be more addicting.
7. The Daily Currant
When a satirical news outlet does such a good job of mirroring real news but with just the right dose of absurdity that it’s constantly being quoted by the mainstream media as legit, you know they’re doing something right. Such is the case for The Daily Currant, which found its stories being repeatedly cited as the truth despite featuring only fictitious articles based on real-life events and trends. Remember when Sarah Palin joined Al Jazeera? Me neither, because it never happened; however, after The Daily Currant had published a satirical piece saying as much, The Washington Post picked it up and ran with the story. Launched in 2012, the site has come a long way now reaching readers globally and and boasting 86,240 Facebook followers.
6. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Formerly a Daily Show correspondent, comedian and all-around badass Samantha Bee got her own weekly show in early 2016. The show, currently the only American late-night talk show hosted by a woman, might not feature any interview guests but it doesn’t hold back on the sarcasm. Bee focuses her Emmy-nominated show on a fearlessly ironic take on the news, covering stories on injustice often ignored by most news outlets. And with a social following consistent with that of long-standing news programs (the show has a whopping 166,000 followers on Twitter and 338,588 on Facebook), it’s obvious that people are drawn to her take on the news.
5. Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update”
The show that has been an American television staple for what seems like eons comes with its own built-in sarcastic news segment: the Weekend Update. Pioneered by Chevy Chase in 1975, it is the longest running segment on SNL and has an anchor roster that reads like a laundry list of now-famous talk-show hosts and actors (Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers… to name a few). The segment alone has 265,000 loyal Twitter followers enticed by its brazen take on current events. Not many news outlets would be bold enough to have Amy Poehler recite a fairly insulting rap about Sarah Palin to her face, and nowhere else can you find Sir Paul McCartney Himself attempt to audio dub a photo of Prince Charles. Quality content, people.
4. Last Week Tonight
If you’ve seen references to one “Donald Drumpf” floating around the Internet in recent months, you can thank Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver. Oliver, a former Daily Show correspondent, premiered his own satirical news program on HBO in 2014 to an average of 4.1 million weekly viewers in the first five months. If you don’t have HBO, you can find all of his longer segments on YouTube—if you haven’t already—and enjoy 15 minutes of unadulterated, it’s-ok-because-we’re-on-cable hilarious rants about anything and everything happening in the world. Plus he’s British, making the dry sarcasm on Last Week Tonight that much more enjoyable to watch.
3. The Borowitz Report
Crowned “America’s Satire King,” Andy Borowitz is a comedic force to be reckoned with. After casually creating The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, he went on to launch The Borowitz Report in 2001 and begin his career as a political satirist. His millions of readers were doubtlessly pulled in by articles with funny headlines like “Trump Blasts Media for Reporting Things He Says” and stayed for the no-holds-barred commentary. It was so successful—Borowitz’ personal Facebook page has 419,338 likes and his Twitter account maintains a 577,000 following despite being inactive for a few years now—that the site was eventually acquired by The New Yorker in 2012, where it remains today.
2. The Daily Show
The mother of all sarcastic news TV shows was founded in 1996 before it was taken over by The Prophet Jon Stewart in 1999. Stewart made the show his own, pioneering the “fake news” model and launching the careers of many political satirists mentioned in this article. During his reign as TV’s premier political satirist, Stewart interviewed everyone from President Obama to Malala Yousafzai and featured segments with both desk commentary and outside videos courtesy of his correspondents. Trevor Noah eventually took over the show in 2015 but Stewart’s legacy of entertaining through critique lives on.
1. The Onion
And finally: The ultimate source of sarcastic news. The Oprah of the satire industry. The Onion has held the standard for the most well-known “fake news” news for quite some time now. Founded in 1988, this website has grown to a bonafide media monster encompassing its own ad agency, Buzzfeed-parody site Clickhole, millions of monthly readers, and a significant social presence (9 million followers on Twitter and just over 5 million on Facebook, to be exact). Onion readers get video and audio content in addition to the regular satirical articles discussing every type of news imaginable. With headlines ranging from “Trump Campaign Ponders Going Negative” to “Michael Phelps Spots Estranged Father Poseidon In Stands,” you’re sure to be LOLing at your desk.