| Type | News Satire |
|---|---|
| Format | Newspaper |
| Founder | Rahul Roushan |
| Founded | September 15, 2008 |
| Official website | fakingnews.com |
Faking News is an Indian news satire website that publishes fake news reports containing satire on politics and society of India. The website also publishes occasional serious articles related to television journalism in India. The website was launched on September 15, 2008.[1]
The website is daily in shape of a blog written by a blogger with pseudonym “Pagal Patrakar”, a Hindi term that literally translates to ‘crazy journalist’ in English.[2] Initially writing anonymously, the blogger was later identified as a Delhi based management consultant Rahul Roushan.[3]
Faking News is one of the few websites or blogs in India using the tools of sarcasm and humor to publish news satire, as is widely done in the western countries, a trend pioneered by The Onion of USA.[4] According to the latest Alexa rankings, Faking News lies second, although a distant second, to The Onion among all the news satire websites in English.[5]
Two of the fake news reports by Faking News, "Unable to attract even a single girl, frustrated man sues Axe" and "Men talking loud on mobile during movies have smaller penises", were mistaken as being genuine and factual news reports by an Indian website Indiainfo.com on October 21, 2009 and were republished on their website.[6][7] Subsequently, the Axe story was republished by many other websites and blogs in countries other than India, mistaking it to be a true story[8][9][10][11][12][13], latest being by The Times of India on May 27, 2011 [14] and on September 25, 2011[15] making it an urban legend.[16] Another Faking News report titled "Unable to figure out Google Wave, youngster kills himself" was mistaken as being true by an Indian website OneIndia.com on November 10, 2009.[17]