The line between reality and fiction is finer than ever as satirical newspaper, The Onion, ‘America’s Finest News Source,’ now has its own online broadcast channel, the Onion News Network.

‘The Onion News Network has been on the air since 1904,’ said ONN staff writer Daniel Mirk. ‘We have a strong commitment to the facts. Of course there are some things that some would take exception to, but the stories are 100 percent factual.’

Somehow, he can’t quite say it with a straight face.

Apparently ‘commitment to the facts,’ is relative. ONN launched on March 27, with three entirely fake news segments, featuring anchor ‘Brandon Armstrong.’ The clips covered Condoleezza Rice’s trip to the Middle East, troops stationed in Iraq and an immigration problem.

On the surface, these would appear to be fairly standard news topics, except Rice is now traveling through pirate-infested waters, the troops in question are newly enlisted Civil War re-enactors and the immigration debate concerns a CEO replaced by his over-the-border counterpart, willing to work for $200,000 less.

‘We discovered there are occasionally times in our viewers’ lives when they are forced to be away from a television,’ said Onion editor in chief Scott Dikkers in a recent press release. ‘The Onion News Network will fill these gaps of news access with a seriousness and integrity missing from news today.’

ONN joins a large group of fake broadcast news sources, each with their own twist on the genre. While ONN’s segments feature actors and are entirely scripted, ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’ records real people but uses its ‘correspondents’ to make the stories silly and humorous.

‘One reason it works is it’s not completely fictitious,’ said Robert Thompson, a television, radio and film professor. ‘Every show contains three segments. First, there are the live, scripted green-screen reports and headlines. Second, there are the field reports, in which ‘correspondents’ interview real people. Third, there are the real interviews. So there are three levels of fiction. It’s a complex recipe, but helps it move well.’

Ben Garden, The Onion’s features editor, said the Onion and ONN’s stories will be more general in subject matter than ‘The Daily Show,’ due to time constraints.

”The Daily Show’ has the luxury of being able to set up their jokes by working on the same day, but we work two weeks ahead of time,’ he said. ‘We’re just not as fast as they are. We try to take the general tone more than specifics. We just don’t have the structure for the daily minutia of the news.’

And then there’s ‘The Colbert Report,’ a dead-on parody of ‘The O’Reilly Factor.’ Stephen Colbert, a faux right-wing pundit who got his start on ‘The Daily Show,’ channels his inner Bill O’Reilly.

‘The Onion or even ‘The Daily Show,’ is old-fashioned,’ Thompson said. ‘They just take the news and make fun of it. Colbert is a bit more, since his is both a fictional character and a real character.’

With an actor playing a character who shares his name, things can get confusing.

‘He recently had a guest on the show his character outsmarted, but whose beliefs the real Colbert likely agreed with,’ Thompson said. ‘If you play him really well, what’s the difference between you and O’Reilly?’

In October, an Indiana University study found that in 2004, ‘The Daily Show’ coverage of the election was just as substantial as the coverage on the traditional news stations. The study noted the video and audio content of ‘The Daily Show’ was equal to that of broadcast stories. ‘The Daily Show’ spends a smaller percentage of the time on substance, but on average, its election segments were longer.

Also, while all of ONN’s stories are blatantly fake, ‘The Daily Show’ takes a decidedly different format.

When Stewart delivers the headlines at the beginning of the episode, he first presents the actual story, in a very factual tone. He then proceeds, with a lighter voice and an impish smile, to make the joke – be it a bizarre network news reaction, a hastily photo-shopped image or an accent of indistinguishable origin.

The clear news punch line format makes it easy for the viewer to understand what the real story is.

‘Still, ‘The Daily Show’ shouldn’t be the only source of one’s news,’ Thompson said. ‘As one diversifies an economic portfolio, one should diversify where one gets their information. ‘The Daily Show’ can be part of a balanced diet.’

This doesn’t stop Matt Gervasio, junior engineering major, from getting all his news from ‘The Daily Show.’

‘I’m not really into politics,’ he said. ”The Daily Show’ is pretty much the only thing I’d watch, because it’s factual, but still entertaining.’

Fake news can also serve as an alternative to the flawed 24-hour news networks.

‘So much of news seems fake anyway; the fake news shines a light on the more ridiculous aspects of broadcast news,’ ONN staff writer Mirk said. ‘It makes people more skeptical of the real news.’

Thompson agreed that comedy serves an important role in the media.

‘Journalism is reporting something as it happens, but comedy is different. It interprets the news,’ Thompson said. ‘Journalism is the fourth estate, but comedy can often act as a fifth estate, a check on the powers of journalism.’

Stewart’s infamous ‘Crossfire’ appearance, Colbert’s White House Press Corps dinner speech and John Edwards announcing his candidacy on ‘The Daily Show’ are all examples of this.

‘They are stepping out and becoming political forces outside of the world they were in,’ Thompson said. ‘It’s a more sophisticated, ambitious political comedy. With candidates actually announcing their candidacy on the show, it is becoming real news.’

Gardner said the Onion has not yet ruled out interviewing real people.

‘We’re considering a feature in which H Cuthbert Zweibel, our organization’s founder, interviews actors and other politicians,’ he said. ‘He’s a curmudgeonly, old, 200-year-old man who is very out-of-touch. We would want him to interview real subjects.’

Published on April 11, 2007 at 12:00 pm