The 2024 Legal Defense Fundraiser has ended early due to the Board's decision to settle the suit. Donations will go towards the creation of a legal defense fund. Discussion on the matter can be found at the RationalMedia Foundation noticeboard. Thank you for your generous support.

Information icon.svg Campaigning is open for the RationalWiki 2024 Board of Trustees election.

National Report

From RationalWiki
Revision as of 18:06, 25 May 2019 by Bongolian (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Someone is wrong on
The Internet
Icon internet.svg
Log in:

National Report is a troll "news" site. Unlike satirical sites such as The Onion or The Daily Mash, which offer sarcastic commentary on world events, the National Report is a bit more sinister: it deliberately attempts to deceive and spark outrage (and generate clickbait traffic) with joke-free fake news stories that report on outrageous or alarming fictional events as if they were true. (Sample headline: Texas Town Quarantined After Family Of Five Test Positive For The Ebola Virus.)

National Report specializes in exploiting Poe's Law by pandering to cranky (usually social conservative) American beliefs: the site has the names and photos of Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin prominently across its masthead, despite neither having any connection to the site. Stories are quite often picked up by others and treated either as fact or as examples of wingnuttery, according to their disposition.

During the government shutdown in October, 2013, Fox News reporter Anna Kooiman repeated as fact a National Report spoof about President Obama spending his own money to keep a museum of Muslim culture open (even though it is privately funded and therefore was unaffected by the shutdown). She apologized on Twitter the following day, after many other sources spotted the mistake and comedians made fun of Fox.

See also

External links