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Satire could change the world

But is that a good thing?

By Alice Chen

Steven Patterson is a well-regarded stand-up comedian, starring in CBC Radio One’s The Debaters, but he’s got a strong opinion on how impactful on society his work really is.


“Comedy’s main job is to be funny…I think any organization would say ‘Oh we don’t care what these people say,’ and the comedians would say ‘we’re not trying to change the world singlehandedly,” he says.


But others, like comedy writer and teacher Anne Fenn, would disagree.

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Satirizing sensitive topics

Is this offensive?

By Jordan Barrera

After a woman was sexually assaulted at a Pittsburgh Penguin’s game, an article about the attack concluded with the game’s final score.


Jessica Perkins, a Toronto-based sketch and stand-up comedian was part of the Second City house company at that time. One member came across the article and brought it to the rest of the cast. Upset by how the victim’s experience was trivialized, they decided to satirize the article. 

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Conservative satire is underrepresented

For good reason

By Connor Atkinson

Brad Stine has made a fruitful living as a professional comedian. He has bought and sold three homes, put his son through college and owned several nice cars from money earned throughout his career.


Financial success for conservative comedians is rare. Stine’s decades-long career has faced a barrage of hate. He is often prefaced as unfunny, but was once called “God’s comic” in an August 2004 issue of The New Yorker. He is white, straight and a born-again Christian; what he refers to as the “trifecta of everything that could go wrong with being a comedian.”

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Behind the minds of editorial cartoonists

Hamsters on wheels

By Giorgio Lee

After making a cup of coffee in his office, Michael De Adder places a stack of newspapers on his desk and skims through each one, trying to find a story that will make him upset.



“The inspiration behind my cartoons is when I get mad at an issue and I find with politics these days it’s really easy to get upset,” De Adder explained. “The best cartoons are the ones that are fed by emotion, whether it’s anger or sadness.”

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The future of satire

Podcasting killed the television star?

By Alice Chen

Alison Cicci’s podcast isn’t quite like anything else on the market.


With a mix of topical dark humour and disability advocacy, her podcast, The Satirically Challenged Show, features Cicci and three other on-air personalities as well as eight more cast members working behind-the-scenes.


“Everyone on the podcast has disabilities, so it’s a very inclusive podcast,” she says.

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Fake news or satire?

Are we even real man?

By Jordan Barrera

Steve Boyd, owner of The Lapine, a satirical online news publication, remembers a time when satirists were praised whenever readers confused their work as fact. He says writers used to get a laugh out of it. But now, if a reader is duped, writers are criticized.  


“Five years ago, before fake news, people recognized humour in satire and nobody accused you of doing something wrong,” Boyd says. “Now, we get accused of doing something wrong if somebody believes what we write.”

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Camp Fire

Canada’s political satire torch continues to burn

We didn't start the fire

By Connor Atkinson

Television history was made on Oct. 8, 1993, when an audience of hundreds filed into CBC’s studio in Halifax.

The crowd sat in on the first taping of a six-episode tester for the comedy phenomenon, This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Now in its 25th year, Canada’s first satirical news programming maintains its legacy.

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The Beaverton: Canada's newest take on political satire and fake news

Hip as heck

By Giorgio Lee

As Miguel Rivas reads over his script for Comedy Network’s newest satirical news program The Beaverton, he starts to feel anxious knowing the show’s realistic style of reporting will be fresh and unique to viewers.


“Our top story, the United States was found dead last night in its North American home,” Co-host Miguel Rivas announced at the beginning of the first episode following Donald Trumps presidential win. “ Investigators have ruled the death a suicide as the result of 300 million gun shots to the foot.”

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Different Strokes for different folks

Makes the world go round

By Alice Chen

Anime Maru site editor in chief Kevin Huang is glad he’s the only one competing in his niche – that niche being satirical takes on anime news.


Huang founded it in 2015 after he grew bored of his anime blog. The website has enjoyed considerable success, accumulating over six million views in the years since. 

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Weaponized Humour

Satire: The Weapon

By Jordan Barrera

Karyn Buxman believes satire is empowering. Humour, she says, can be a tool and a weapon.


Buxman shows people how humour can be used to take back control of a situation. She is the former president of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor, which teaches members to use humour in a healthy way. She is now a public speaker and an author.

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Rob Ford’s battle with political satire

A double-edged sword

By Connor Atkinson

Rob Ford’s brother Doug thinks Andy King is a scumbag.


King is the director of the satirical comedy Filth City, a film about a mayor who gets caught on camera using crack cocaine and tries to ensure the footage does not get seen by the public. Although it was shot in 2015 (before Ford’s death), a CP24 broadcast from March quoted Doug saying that King had better not be “crossing the street when I am driving down the road.”

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Why 22 minutes is a funnier alternative to the news

Worth laughing about

By Giorgio Lee 

Cathy Jones puts on pink lipstick, a blonde wig and a purple dress before entering the set of This Hour Has 22 Minutes to film her latest comedy sketch.


  “Yesterday we heard Ivana Trump saying (on The Wendy Williams Show) that Melania wasn’t really the first Lady because she was Trumps first wife,” Jones explained. “So I played Ivana and she (Susan Kent) played Melania and we had a little interview with each other.”

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