The Satire News Complex

The two blogs I am comparing are wonkette.com and gawker.com. Wonkette.com is a blog on the DC area, Gawker.com is for the New York area. Both of these blogs would be defined as satire news website. Their main purpose is point out discrepancies and questionable motives within the news structure, albeit in a very snarky, mocking way. Wonkette focuses on issues within the beltway- namely, politics, and devotes itself to mocking and analyzing both the coverage and actions of the political figures. Gawker.com, originally was made to be the bane of the NYT's existence. While gawker.com still questions all questionable NYT times articles, it has started to anaylze all aspects of New York City life.

The interesting aspect of both of these blogs is that they actually are very informative of news, in an irreverent way. Usually the blogs point out issues and inconsistancies that would otherwise go unnoticed. Furthermore, neither of the blogs consider any person or topic out of bounds, which means that their coverage is fair, everyone is treated the same, usually very badly.

The differences between Wonkette and Gawker begin with their actual purpose. Wonkette reports only on politics, with the occasional DC local news. Besides politicians, Wonkette rarely publishes anything on specific people. Also, a great deal of wonkette's work is original, and not republished from other news sites.
Gawker usually analyzes other news stories from other sources. Gawker's main staple is judging the New York Times newspaper articles, along with other New York newspapers. Gawker also reports on all aspects of New York life, including society, modeling and entertainment. Gawker often also has special reports. Earlier this year, it had a running column on a student from Bard college. Gawker also reports on "internet celebrities", such as the inventor of Facebook.
I believe that Gawker and Wonkette are indicators of a much larger new trend in news: the satire news. Satire news has taken off the past few years. The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and the Onion, all "fake real news" have obtained great popularity within the past few years because of the young generation. I believe that Gawker and likewise blogs are just a continuation of a trend that seems to be snowballing, as the bridge between entertainment and news has narrowed. News shows are trying to be more entertaining, and much of entertainment is trying to be more news orientated. Therefore, it only makes sense that our generation, which loves to be entertained, should expect our news to be given to us in a palatable and enjoyable format.


links:
www.gawker.com
www.wonkette.dom