“Good night, and good news.”
For nearly a decade, whenever Ted Baxter barked his famous catch phrase to end his nightly newscast, the viewers smiled. To hear him tell it, Baxter was the most beloved newscaster in Minnesota, the icon we depended on to sing the good news with a golden voice.
Of course, none of that actually happened. Ted Baxter was a character on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. As far as we know, he never actually existed. But we believed in him. We knew that his Minneapolis was getting the straight dope… The real fake news. When pundits, spin, and optics are the order of the day, we need a parental voice telling us what isn’t happening in a way that makes us feel informed, inspired, and maybe a little wistful. But where is that voice? Where is the CBS sitcom with a fake anchorman that will give us some good news?
For now, we’re shit out of luck. NBC cancelled a show literally called Good News this year. ABC won’t create a news-based sitcom unless Shonda Rhimes gets inspired, and she’s too busy pitching shows to watch the news. CBS? Who knows what the hell is going on over there anymore? Even the self-serious award-winning The Newsroom is only producing new shorts for HBO’s hit new puppet show Sesame Street. The genre seems doomed to die.
Not if I can fucking help it.
Five years ago, I left my job as a humble stockbroker to partner with KCOM Studios on a bold new project; The Fakist aims to bring authenticity back to the fake news. With my booming voice, restrained by dark liquor, I cover the fake news for real from our headquarters in Somewhere West of New York City, America.
It’s a pretty sweet gig.
I know. I know. Fake news is everywhere, but because it’s everywhere, it’s hard to get the good stuff. The uncut fake news shot straight into your eardrum with an adrenaline chaser. And what’s the alternative? Go outside and see what’s really going on? Doesn’t that sound hard? And boring. I mean, a lot of it just leaves blowing around and stuff. Who has the time? You want the methadone of fake news: Sure, it’s addictive, but it’s not that harmful.
We know you’re a “news junkie,” scrolling through your Facebook feed to find the one video that will help you win that argument with Barb from spin class. Don’t worry. Down at spin class we all know that you’re right and kinda hate Barb anyway, and at The Fakist, we know just the story that will help you shut her down. It’s in our first podcast, available June 18 on iTunes. Seriously. Show Barb what’s up.
As somebody very intelligent (probably me) once said, having the guts to be honest about not telling the truth is as real as it gets. That’s what we’re doing on The Fakist. And we’re looking to get you hooked. We don’t care that you’re a junkie. We just want you to be hooked on our stuff. Unlike literally every media outlet in the world since 1947’s historic Spring Fling, we aim to take a clear position on our fake stories and maintain an aire — air? — heir? — maintain an illusion of objectivity. We’re the liars you can trust.
Fake news’ greatest asset is its adaptability, its longevity, its place as the first thing we turn to when we need to justify our opinions. But that may not be the case for Millenials, for whom the internet is simply a playground, full of Mindcrafts and dabbing and The Floss (which I can only assume is some pervy ecommerce site).
Who has the time for fake news?
As the information superhighway becomes a bigger and bigger pain in the ass (both to users and newbs), social networks are starting to experiment with new ways to deliver their product. On election night, Facebook offered a service where Facebook employees would call and read you your DMs, doing their best impersonation of the sender. Not to be outdone, Twitter collapsed in the corner, muttering something about wasted potential. They adapted. They’ll probably die.
Don’t change what works.
Bottom line? You want to know what fake news to believe. That kind of editorial guidance is more important than ever in 2018, when any man rich enough to steal an iPhone can build a Facebook following of a few hundred thousand people for editing Minions faces onto bags of potato chips. The internet isn’t an amplifier, it’s a filter, drowning out the important work we do on The Fakist with everything from memes to leggings to actual facts.
Some days, fake news is the only good news on tap. We don’t need to know what’s happening — Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, and our actual lives distract us from that just fine — but we desperately need to know which of the twelve bajillion fake stories we read every day will make us feel smart, and why. The fake news’s job is to ignore real stories, the non-stories and spin, and the serious stories, and make something up that really matters.
Maybe we need Ted Baxter more than ever. He’s total bullshit, so you’ll have to settle for me. Don’t worry. I’ll give you the good stuff.
My name is Paul Dafoe. This is The Fakist, and it starts now.
Subscribe to The Fakist on iTunes, and download the first thrilling episode June 18th!