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Starting up a satire news site--what do you guys think?
Hi, I need some opinions on a satire news site I want to start up by this Fall.
Essentially I will start off with myself and a group of close friends of mine as the main writers. The friends that I have recruited for the idea are attending universities across the continent, which will provide the website with a larger variability of news content. Also, since they are scattered across the nation and the US, they will be able to cover and to report on news with credibility i.e., my friend who attends NYU is a more credible reporter on news in NY or the East coast than I would be.
We all have different senses of humour, a knack for writing, and different interests that we could specialize in like Arts & culture, business, politics & international relations, technology, etc.
The point of the site is not to attack current news and issues, but we want people to read news from a comedic perspective and to hear it from writers who can relate to the public. If all goes well, we would like to expand the site with more featured satirical writers.
I'd like to hear some opinions about the idea since I'm still in the developing stages and as a team we are still fine-tuning our start-up plan.
I would like to know whether this kind of news site will interest any of you? Do you think it's overdone? Would you participate as a writer in a site like this? Would like to see anything on the site that I haven't mentioned?
Thanks!
Essentially I will start off with myself and a group of close friends of mine as the main writers. The friends that I have recruited for the idea are attending universities across the continent, which will provide the website with a larger variability of news content. Also, since they are scattered across the nation and the US, they will be able to cover and to report on news with credibility i.e., my friend who attends NYU is a more credible reporter on news in NY or the East coast than I would be.
We all have different senses of humour, a knack for writing, and different interests that we could specialize in like Arts & culture, business, politics & international relations, technology, etc.
The point of the site is not to attack current news and issues, but we want people to read news from a comedic perspective and to hear it from writers who can relate to the public. If all goes well, we would like to expand the site with more featured satirical writers.
I'd like to hear some opinions about the idea since I'm still in the developing stages and as a team we are still fine-tuning our start-up plan.
I would like to know whether this kind of news site will interest any of you? Do you think it's overdone? Would you participate as a writer in a site like this? Would like to see anything on the site that I haven't mentioned?
Thanks!
Comments
Looks like something that would interest me, but it really depends on how it is written and what kind of stuff it covers. I think that it would appeal to me most if it focused on more obscure news instead of the "breaking news" type stuff. You could even spoof the typical newspaper headlines by making the more mundane stuff the focus? Just as an idea! I predict that people would get tired of having to read the same news stuff over and over, even if it's being satirical. So you'd want to have something unique in your stories.
I will definitely check it out! :smile:
it's interesting how you mentioned focusing on obscure news rather than breaking news. we were actually discussing this and we could not come to a conclusion because as refreshing as it is to read about something that isn't covered in mainstream media, we also think it is relevant to write about current and pressing issues that will appeal to a wider audience. I suppose we will end up having a mix of both.
We plan on having unique editorial sections, which I can't disclose yet since we need to develop them more before we have a realistic idea of whether this will work or not.
And we plan on keeping with our roots-- it will have more of a Canadian spin :) For example, we're thinking of having a weekly editorial focusing on one major issue from the POVs of the major federal political parties (as opposed to the common leftist vs. rightist POVs)...
Anyway, these are ideas in its developmental stages. I hope this'll work out but there's a lot of tweaking involved before we commit to it. And i'm trying to think of a domain name for it hahaha.
you have to build up your confidence in order to be a good writer, so be optimistic and don't put yourself down like that :)
plus, my friends and I aren't professional writers or anything, we're just interested in news and media. Without good ideas you can't have good content--good ideas come first, the rest is just technicality.
Well, we're thinking since the people involved are amateur writers, we want to allow those who want to participate to be able to write articles and to express their opinions too. We may develop a system where amateur writers/journalists (university students or not) can send in their articles, and become featured on the site. So basically our goal is to allow unknown or aspiring writers/journalists to feature themselves. However this would only work if we have enough of a following, so it's going to have to start off with my friends and I.
we may end up scrapping the idea lol, and doing something else. Implementing a database system to store member accounts and such is time consuming and expensive...
as long as it is thought provoking and you keep a certain consistency to it, you will most likely develop a following
(sidenote: try not to make it too bloggy lol, that is very been there done that)
As for blogs, that is not the style we're looking for, although I think each contributing writer would have one, so they can do some online writing and we can read/edit/give insightful responses, etc. Forums aren't neccessary until we have a developing community, so we're thinking we'll just leave it for readers to send emails about the article to the corresponding writer.
I don't know though. At first we were adamant about doing this, but now the motivation is kind of dying off...so we'll see...