Screenshots of two satirical news websites

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 22: At first glance, you notice a picture each of Mahatma Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. If it looks like another serious news portal, look below the pictures.

Faking News associates the Father of the Nation with the Quit India movement and the Prime Minister with the Quiet India movement.

A headline in The Unreal Times, another such site, reads: “RBI replaces rupee with onion to regain parity with US dollar.”

Presenting latest happenings of the world in such tongue-in-cheek manner, the new age satire, spoof, humour and parody sites are gaining immense popularity.

While this is a trend across the country, city youngsters are not far behind in following the sites.

Like any young college-goer, Shree Tripathy, too, had little time and patience to go through newspapers and relied heavily on news channels for her daily dose of news. But just when the youngster was getting tired of listening to screaming news anchors, she came across some of these websites.

“They re-ignited my interest in politics. I had little understanding of foreign affairs and business news but the way they poke fun at such issues, it becomes much more interesting to know what the real issue is,” said the 22-year-old.

These websites not only provide entertainment, but also present it in a detailed manner that provides food for thought. Jyotiprakash Bhujbal, who works with a human resource firm, is smitten by such websites. He follows them on social networking websites so he is updated about their latest posts. “They are like any proper news portal, only they are way more interesting to read! The format and layout all are like regular news websites. They have some chosen characters with their idiosyncrasies from political, business, sports sector and even media and love to fictionalise them,” said 27-year-old who also follows Mocking News and News That Matters Not.

“They should not be considered frivolous. They help a lot in changing mindsets and spread awareness,” he said.

Academic S.N. Mohanty offers a word of caution. “It is advantageous and entertaining only when the writer and reader are both well informed about the issue. Otherwise, such tampering of news is purely in bad taste,” he said.

Others opined that since most of these websites invite contributions from youngsters, who have a knack for playing with news, the young readers connect to them easily. The popularity of these websites can be estimated from the fact that any interesting post on them goes viral in a matter of hours.