This past week, Q-line asked: Is the increasing appeal of news satire healthy, drawing non-news watchers into topical discussions; or does the glut of satire only serve to blur the truth in journalism and politics? Here are your responses: ✆ “Satire is great. But most of the people who read it and respond to it really don’t get it. They are unable to put it in its place. Therefore, they put things out of their true perspective and get even more slanted political views than the politicos and the media manage to do.” ✆ “If we can’t poke fun at politicians, there is nobody left to poke fun at. If anyone deserves to have fun made out of them its the politicians. These crooks are so stupid sometimes you can laugh just thinking about what they do.” ✆ “Show me a news rag or television news show that is not satirical! The dictionary description of satire is the use of irony, sarcasm or ridicule in exposing, denouncing or deriding vice, folly or the like. Am I missing something here? I am an insatiable reader of news rags. First, I read the high-class intellectual rags such as The Inquirer, The Star and even The Globe. Then I reduce myself to the LA Times. Then after cramming and deeply studying the items presented to me by these wonderful news rags, I come away with the information that Madonna is adopting a child and some folks are not pleased with it, or a wonderment about who is the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby. I could go and go, but I do not wish to wax satirical.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 11, 2006. Read the original PDF.