A few thoughts on satire and fake news and the miserable state of affairs these days.......

As an amateur satirist and a teacher of essay writing I've been more and more forced by our current political climate to consider the elements of Fake News. Metropolitan Community College has recently added resource material on Fake News to its library home page. Helping students determine which news is real and which is fake is part of my job as an instructor in the classroom. As a purveyor of satire on fb and in my own blog, I'm often asked if what I write is true. It is usually true in a Colbertian "truthiness" sort of way -- not always literally true, with the understanding that literally now is unfortunately also defined as figuratively. Even the distinction between literal and figurative is no longer distinct. Lying has moved from covering crimes and indiscretions (Nixon and Clinton) to strategic (George W. Bush and weapons of mass distractions) to lying about everything large or small all the time (J. Lord Dampnut). The change from the big lie to lie all the time about everything is a challenge. I only print the news I make up except when I print the actual news I did not make up and readers think it's satire because it can't possibly be true in which case it is both true and has truthiness. I believe my fake news in not fake in the pejorative sense of the word. Actual Fake News does not contain truth, truthiness, or literal or figurative truth. Actual Fake News is meant to deceive and undermine truth and has propaganda value in the Orwellian sense of the word. My fake news, satire, is meant to remove the layers of obfuscation and deception from our commercial/political media machines. Fake news distorts truth; satire illuminates truth. It is getting tougher and tougher to write satire. I used to take news and exaggerate, parody, and mock it. Now I often just report the what happens. One of my friends left this comment on a recent blog: "Bud, you'd be the greatest satirist in the history of comedy if this wasn't all true. The Don, Shame Spiker and Kellyanne Convict and Prince Rebus make it all too easy for you--all you have to do is transcribe the week's (or often, one day's) events. Sad." We are transitioning from one of the most honest politicians of our history to perhaps the most dishonest one ever promulgating fusillades of mendacity tweet after tweet, hour after hour, day after day. It's not easy keeping up.