With headlines like Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs and WWE Challenges US Government to a Cage Match, only the biggest of idiots ever thought that any of these hilarious stories actually contained even one iota of truth and the rest of us all enjoyed a cavalcade of laughter at the farce of the ridiculous and the bizarre being proposed as legitimate news.

And then you came along – with your social medias and your political bias, devoid of any journalistic integrity that might actually drive you to research your shit before posting baseless drivel online in the form of stupid memes and clickbait articles for the sake of not laughs, but what???

Thanks to fake news being hijacked by the politically corrupt, dumb people will click on anything these days and consider it fact instead of being skeptical because even an idiot could tell that a woman stealing tampons from work for pleasure couldn’t possibly be a real thing … or even if it was, a real live, legitimate journalist wouldn’t see fit to write a story for a real live, legitimate newspaper about it!

This is not your 10th grade US history class where you could just make up any old tale about the revolutionary war being fought over free access to mashed potatoes and gravy and your drunk of a history teacher would just give everybody A’s because he’d spent the night before waltzing with Jack Daniels in his studio apartment above the music store downtown wondering how his life had become all of this when in college he’d really wanted to be a poet instead.

This is the Internet where we post pictures of cats and inspirational quotes attributed to the wrong people, but in an amusing sort of way, and you don’t just blatantly make up things that are false, but not in a satirical manner, because you enjoy confusing people like some sort of asshole who lives in a trashcan with surprisingly good Internet access.

It’s not hard to look things up online. You literally just type something like 2016 ELECTION POPULAR VOTE into that bar at the top of your screen and a page will pop up showing you the actual numbers so you don’t have to just randomly mash buttons on the keyboard until your incendiary meme is complete and ready to post.

When you post mindless drivel suggesting that one group of people did something bad to another group of people when truth be told both groups of people just stayed home and caught up on their respective Netflix queues instead, it does a disservice to legitimate mindless drivel trying to make people chuckle by suggesting that a woman punching a hamburger has intentions for running for the Republican presidential nomination.

So in the immortal words of President-Elect Donald Trump, which is sadly not a fake news creation by any stretch of one’s perverted imagination, “Stop it.”

The post Stop Sullying the Name of Fake News!!! appeared first on Just Laugh.

“It’s a new thing called ‘online shopping’,” cited the perky, 24-year old’s report that was actually published by a real media outlet, “and many people will be giving thanks to it this year for saving them more time that they can spend with their families on what has traditionally been the busiest shopping weekend of the year.”

Completely inept to the fact that online sales have been chipping away at the significance of Black Friday for years, Sebastine comically explained to actual viewers of the local TV station that instead of standing in lines, shoppers might this year do the bulk of their holiday shopping “in their pajamas” as she demonstrated purchasing a copy of The Devil Wears Prada from Amazon.com that she looks forward to receiving in plenty of time to give as a gift for her older sister, Heidi.

“And there – with just a few simple clicks,” the inexplicably proud journalist said as she smiled cluelessly into the camera, “my Christmas list is one present closer to completion, and I didn’t even have to set foot outside!”

After talking over footage of light traffic that she had captured with the help of cameraman Scott Cloud at the Westfield Southcenter earlier that afternoon, Sebastine unabashedly closed her report with a clever shot from her own bedroom where pink bunny slippers peeked out from beneath the sheets while she happily reiterated her line earlier about doing her own shopping from the comforts of her bedroom as if the first mainstream e-commerce transactions hadn’t happened when she was barely two years old.

The post Retailers to Begin Offering Black Friday Sales Online, Cites Outdated Local News Reporter appeared first on Just Laugh.

The latest fraud was 27-year-old Jayson Blair of the New York Times, who wrote numerous fake stories at the Times before finally being caught. He duped the editorial staff of what has been called one of the most powerful newspapers in the world.

For three or four years, he claimed he filed stories from distant locales when he was really in his apartment, created entire scenes and conversations that never occurred, and even used the Internet to steal quotes and stories from other newspapers around the country.

So now Blair joins the ranks of Janet Cooke of the Washington Post, Stephen Glass of the New Republic, and the Boston Globe’s Mike Barnicle and Patricia Smith. And like most of these other liars, he’ll end up smelling like a rose when it’s all over.

Of course, Blair didn’t accept responsibility for his own actions. He told the Associated Press he was “struggling with recurring personal issues, which have caused me great pain. I am now seeking appropriate counseling.”

What kind of counseling do they have for pathological liars?

Blair: Hi, my name is Jayson, and I’m a liar.

Liars Anonymous: Hi Jayson.

Blair: I didn’t really write all those stories in the Times. I was too busy working as an undercover secret agent, spying on France.

Actually, Blair’s counseling was to check himself in at a $10,000 per week drug rehab clinic. According to a story in the New York Post, this was to overcome a cocaine habit, not to cure himself of habitually deceiving his employers. And he spent six whole days in the posh Silver Hill Clinic, in New Caanan, Connecticut.

So what should we believe? Whether he actually had a coke habit? That it was his coke habit, and not a major personality flaw, that made him a fraud? Or that he got all better after only six days?

What I’m more likely to believe is that — in the American tradition of rewarding stupidity and dishonesty — Blair will try to make money off his pack of lies. There is talk that Blair could receive a huge book deal, and have a made-for-TV movie produced about his shameless career. He may even be picked to star in Universal Picture’s “Big Fat Liar 2,” although I may have made that last one up.

Unfortunately, pulling the Blair skeleton out of the closet has pulled out a few others as well, and journalists all around the country are suffering for it. Last week, Rick Bragg, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer for The Times, was fired after a brief controversy over how he wrote his articles.

Bragg used the reporting and legwork of an uncredited freelancer named J. Wes Yoder to provide background for a story published in 2002. And while this practice may surprise many people, using “stringers” is very common in the literary and journalism arenas.

Do you actually think big-name reporters like Rick Bragg do all their own grunt work? Heck no, that’s what interns, research assistants, and new reporters are for. They gather research, do interviews, and even provide some of the writing.

Think of it this way: Steve Jobs does not build the computers at Apple, President Bush does not write his own speeches, and Kenneth Lay did not steal Enron’s money all by himself. Even Michelangelo had assistants who did a lot of his work for him.

Most big-time news organizations will give credit to the stringer’s contribution, but in this case, Bragg didn’t. So, The Times said Bragg had violated their policy of creating a minor problem while they were recovering from a major one, and suspended him for two weeks. But Bragg showed them: he quit. He’s got a $1 million book contract with Alfred A. Knopf, so he’ll do just fine.

However, The Times editors did admit they use stringers to beef up their reporters’ stories. “But as a general rule, nonstaffers only supplement our correspondents’ own basic reporting. They do not substitute for it,” they said in an email to Times staff. They then emailed copies of “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter” to their friends without attaching Bruce Cameron’s name to it.

So now, thanks to loathsome frauds like Jayson Blair, journalists everywhere have a harder time being believed by their readers. And it’s not like we were at the top of anyone’s list of “Most Trustworthy People” to begin with. While Blair may think he pulled a fast one on The Times editorial staff, he’s only succeeded in hurting every other hard-working journalist in this country — people who work their entire life to be honest and ethical and are now tainted by Blair’s deceit.

And for that, I hope nobody gives him a dime for his story. Let him go work for the government instead. They could use a few more good liars.

The post Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire appeared first on Just Laugh.