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The Longest Now


Plagiarising satire as news
Sunday February 27th 2011, 8:31 pm
Filed under: fly-by-wire,international,metrics,Not so popular,Rogue content editor

Today the Tehran Times, an English-language paper based in Tehran, and other Iranian news sources, engaged in a bit of Internet journalism, copying some satire (‘Saudi king offers to buy Facebook for $150B to end revolt’) — down to a misspelling of Zuck’s name — into a summary of news on the King’s announced plans for social reform (providing cheap land for housing). This got its fifteen minutes of fame on forums and Twitter, enough to draw a brief official denial.

It’s not news that minor news agencies can be too busy to check facts or worry about copyright, but you’d think they would be more sensitive to satire. All I have to say is: Freshrant made the joke first.




freshrant sincerely offers its thanks for correctly assigning it blame for the above mentioned kerfuffle. You’re facts are entirely correct, unlike the news agencies you highlighted. freshrant first published it’s satirical articles on the Saudi King buying Facebook and Twitter late last month. So it would appear, freshrant scooped this fake story by a month and change. The site is now getting hits in the thousands, so pleased anytime tyrants and news sources with links to tyrants can be mocked. With that in mind, freshrant is continuing in its efforts by reporting that Khadafi has hired Priceline’s “The Big Deal” to lower the price for his Caracas resort where he plans his escape. And it was indeed, as Khadafi suggested, that a band of hippies driving a bus across the Libyan desert dropped acid with millions of locals instigating the nation’s revolt. And this just in: Saudi’s King Abdullah, fearing a revolt of his own, is granting women the right to drive electric wheel chairs.
Keepin’ it fresh and and, as you noted, first with jokes.

Back to baking, freshrant.com

Comment by freshrant 02.28.11 @ 3:13 am

Whoa freshrant replied to your post so fast! I hadn’t heard about this so thanks for the post, its sooo funny.

Comment by Meili's Runescape Blog 03.11.11 @ 4:58 am

What freshrant did was a good example of a blogger’s attitude and a good admin to the web!! 😀

Comment by mguard 07.06.11 @ 2:35 am

Always good to leave some small inaccuracy or miss-pelt name in an article or story that you have written. Then you can prove it was plagiarized when somebody copies the error!

Comment by Steve 07.19.11 @ 11:17 am

With the Saudi’s reputation for dealing under the table with terror groups and waving a supposedly clean hand happily to the US and the rest of the world, they should rename the network Two-Facebook.

Comment by Sheila Griffin 08.10.11 @ 4:59 am





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