Over 50 per cent of Australians admit they actively avoid the news. Comedian and media professional Jon Brooks contemplates the state of comedy and its ability to keep Australians engaged with current affairs. (Image: Craig Egan)
By Leia Vlahos | @leiavlahos_
A man with greasy hair beams at the grainy camera. He’s reporting one of the most pivotal moments in Australian politics – the dismissal of Gough Whitlam.
Garry McDonald’s character, Norman Gunston, eagerly holds his microphone up to politicians, animated with expressive faces and hand gestures.
McDonald is a comedian whereas Gunston is a fictional journalist.
When this character reported such a crucial moment in our history, where do we draw the line between his comedy and journalism?
Satirical news is a form of parody that presents its punchlines by utilising traditional journalistic practices and conventions.
It can discuss real situations with exaggerated or ironic elements — or relies on the absurdity of fictional stories.
This differs from ‘fake news’, media intent on misleading audiences rather than entertaining.
Australian satirical news has become popular online over the last decade, with outlets such as The Betoota Advocate, The Shovel, and The Chaser riding this wave.
The Betoota Advocate publishes satirical news that carries both fictional and heavily exaggerated non-fiction stories.
The outlet has recently published articles discussing diverse topics from a relatable, yet fictional, group chat between friends, to an exaggerated retelling of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Qantas controversy.
The current news landscape
Earlier this year, a study from The University of Canberra found that 68 per cent of Australians actively avoid the news.
Despite that avoidance, 51 per cent of Australians access news sources more than once a day and 49 per cent of Australians receive their news from social media.
With this shift, journalism, like all industries must keep up with the times.
In an age of shortened attention spans and digital citizen journalists, does the integration of comedy into our reporting strengthen our stories or deter from the facts?
A study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and the Ohio State University in 2021 found that young adults were more likely to re-share and remember humorously presented news over non-humorous news.
Nicole Black considers herself a current affairs and political nerd.
She does not mind a bit of banter but is concerned with comedy pushing the envelope too far into degradation or discrimination.
When consuming a particular topic of news for the first time, she will opt for news that is factual and impartial.
“Some satirical stuff is very dangerous when watched by someone who is looking for their point of view to be reflected back in an echo chamber,” she says.
“It doesn’t broaden their perspective.”
Her news format preference depends on her energy levels for the day.
With more energy, Black will read a deep dive into current goings-on and discuss it with friends or family.
When tired, she will consume television programs that make her laugh or angry.
Many comedians in the US are changing social and legislative cultures in real time.
In the US state of Washington, a bill was proposed in 2015 by then-Senator Cyrus Habib that aimed to allow US citizens to submit video testimony over the Internet.
Habib credited the inspiration for the bill to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, who caused the Federal Communications Commission’s website to crash one day after encouraging viewers to voice their concerns about net neutrality.
Courting comedy?
University of South Australia graduate, Isabel McMillan, has been a Court reporter for The Advertiser since August 2023.
She believes that news and comedy share similarities due to the competitive nature of digital journalism.
“How we present a story has to be entertaining because a lot of our revenue comes from online or social media,” McMillan says.
“You’ve got to have a hook onto why you should be actually paying for our stories.”
However, she understands that there is a fine line between appropriate and inappropriate comedy in her reporting.
McMillan says that her judgement of humour is frequently put to ‘The Pub Test’, which refers to questioning what an ordinary and reasoned Australian would think of your actions.
She names The Advertiser’s “Dumbest, Weirdest Crimes” article as an example of court cases that are widely deemed as funny.
She is careful when reporting on a matter that is to be heard in an upcoming court hearing, as injecting humour or commentary may interfere with the defendant’s right to a fair trial.
“I wouldn’t put any humour in a story that was about to go to trial, because if there’s a jury in that trial, it could influence their decision,” McMillan says.
“There is a place for comedy in journalism, but it has to be done well; just don’t be stupid.”
Jon Brooks worked in journalism and politics for two decades before touring Australia with his stand-up comedy routine.
In his eyes, technology has revolutionised stand-up comedy.
“If you go to a comedy club and try to do a set about something that happened in the news that day, you can’t; those stories have been picked to pieces by everyday people on social media before you,” Brooks says, alluding to the ‘digital town square’ — social media, where the public has instantaneous access to news.
Instead, Brooks says the future of comedy lies with personalised stories that cannot be replicated by artificial intelligence.
“In a way, it will be a blend of comedy and gonzo journalism, where the person who is the narrator of the story, will also be the reporter of it,” Brooks says.
Brooks also fears that quality forms of comedic journalism are shrinking due to mixed mediums.
“Look at the evolution of [popular YouTuber, FriendlyJordies]; he went from ridiculous videos about Malcolm Turnbull in a powdered wig, to having his house firebombed because he did stories about the Calabrian mafia in Sydney,” Brooks says.
“It’s insane that a YouTuber would be the one doing that.”
Brooks considers Australian defamation laws as a plausible reason why major news networks shy away from these types of comedic, yet high-risk stories.
“The closest you’ll get to that is Have You Been Paying Attention?, which is BTN for adults with d*** jokes,” he exclaims.
Flinders University creative writing lecturer Alex Cothren advocates for journalists and comedians to start taking riskier approaches.
“It would be great to be scrolling through news and having some comedy that you’re not immediately clear what side it’s coming from,” Cothren says.
Cothren believes that satirical news has risen since the introduction of newer reporting formats.
Traditional forms of journalism, such as televised reports, are less likely to hit the mark with jokes compared to online platforms.
Journalists using social media must compete for views in shorter video formats, leading them to include comedic aspects to prevent viewers from scrolling away.
Cothren says that the problem is not satire, it’s the digital platform that it is presented on.
Due to carefully curated algorithms, platforms are seeking to feed viewers what they want to hear.
“Now, the slant that you’re getting on the news is pretty much always a slant that you already agree with,” Cothren says.
“We need that one non-bias state that just gives us the news as flatly as possible, but no one would ever watch it.”
When consuming news on social media, current affair “nerd” Nicole Black follows different perspectives in hopes of “f***ing up the algorithm”.
“I want to be critical, and I want to be questioning, because you can’t be a passive consumer,” she says.
Academics, echoing the Fourth Estate’s — the press’s — role in holding power to account, have even dubbed satire as “The Fifth Estate” — those who critique mainstream media platforms and people in power perceived as misusing their influence.
In June 2024, Eric Effron, the editor of an anti-misinformation platform named NewsGuard, called for satire pieces to be explicitly labelled as satire.
Alternatively, controversial figures such as Elon Musk, owner of X, believe that there is no need for any misinformation laws.
However, when the issue is that fake news spreads faster than truthful news, how can journalism combat misinformation?
In 2012, China’s People’s Daily republished parts of an article published by The Onion, even reusing pictures featured in the satirical news article.
Similarly, Forbes Magazine has reported that social media users tend to pay less attention to the source of the content they consume.
Alternatively, Cothren does not think that the inclusion of comedy inhibits the audience from comprehending facts in news stories.
If anything, he believes that a comic joking about a niche current affairs allows the audience to stay engaged with news more than a humourless piece.
“The positive spin on comedy news is that they like to laugh and will tune into a show, whilst getting news about issues they might not be aware of,” says Cothren.
“Actually, when you put comedy in the news, they feel like they’ve done their bit, their [citizen duty] for the day.”
Cothren believes the solution to a disengaged audience is for comedian journalists to call for action, so the public knows that laughing along to world issues is not enough.