Every News Story Written Between August 'O4 and March '05 Retracted
by Shawn Westfall, Dcstandup Washington Correspondent, May 17, 2005
In light of recent journalistic malfeasance that resulted in the public losing whatever trust it had in the Fourth Estate, every single news media outlet in the U.S, along with their overseas affiliates, retracted every story issued, published, or aired between the months of August of 2004 and March of 2005, eight months worth of stories.
As evidence of plagiarism, falsified documents being used as the basis for news stories, unverifiable sources and outright fabrications continue to trickle in, most media outlets are now admitting that everything you read or heard about in the news over the past couple months was “complete bullshit.”
“Basically nothing has happened over the last couple months,” said one unnamed source. “We’ve just been making it up. Marlon Brando and the Pope are still alive. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston? They’re still together. And Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner? Please. I mean, what woman in her right mind would ever under any circumstances agree to bear children with Ben Affleck?”
News that the news was completely made-up has been greeted with outrage throughout the country, but nowhere was the outrage more pronounced than in the already-burgeoning fake news industry.
A spokesman for the “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” was livid. “Look, we’re just a half-hour program on some backwater cable channel,” the spokesman said. “When everyone else is in the business of making it up, how the hell are we going to compete? Isn’t there anti-monopoly legislation on the books in this country somewhere?”
Representatives for The Weekly World News, on the other hand, welcomed the competition.
“Falsified presidential military records? Defecating on the Koran? Is that the best they can do?” said one clearly underwhelmed WWN reporter. “Look, when they run an ‘Oprah Marries Bigfoot in Middle of Bermuda Triangle, Elvis Acts As Best Man’ headline, then we’ll talk.”
The reporter continued: “Amateurs, the lot of them.”