Is Historian Thum Ping Tjin a clone of Stephen Colbert?
Is Grace Yeoh actually Peter Tan?
To answer these burning questions and more, Rice Media is launching a ‘Fake News’ Desk to combat the threat of Delicious Online Falsehoods. (DOF)
The Fake News Desk will be staffed by our newly-promoted Fake News Editor, Pan Jie, formerly a reporter known for investigating non-issues like apricot alcohol, his own bowel movements, and evangelical submarines.
“Rice is proud to have Pan Jie head its new Fake News Team,” said Mark Tan, Editor-in-chief at RICE, “He is uniquely suited to the role of fake news editor because he is a major source of bullshit in Singapore.”
“No one is better at sniffing out fake news than its most discerning producer,” he elaborated.
The role of the Fake News Desk will be to tackle any news that might be false, thus protecting the internet’s status as a credible source of information.
This can be anything. Literally anything from ‘real fake news’ like The Straits Times’s claims to non-partisanship to ‘fake fake news’, like the rumours, urban legends or anything so profoundly stupid that it just might be true.
Like the existence of the Bukit Timah Monkey Man. (False: A humanoid biped covered with fur will die of heatstroke in the Bukit Timah forest)
Or the rumour that Uber was sold to Grab because a driver accidentally rated Ho Ching 4.5 stars. (True: He was pissed. Who the hell has change for a billion dollars?)
Once something has been flagged as a DOF, our #FakeNewsSquad will investigate the issue (if it exists) to separate truth from falsehood, before throwing away those conclusions if they do not make good clickbait.
As of April 1st, the role of Fake News Editor is still fake news because our not-quite Editor has nothing to edit. However, he looks forward to a future without irony.
Send him your stories, and help us justify keeping him employed.
“Hopefully, the #FakeFakeNewsSquad will be #RealFakeNewsSquad soon,” Pan Jie explained, “I kinda have a mortgage to pay and I really need this fake raise to be real.”
(Fake: He lives with his parents)
In the meantime, your friendly neighbourhood Fake News editor urges you to come forward with news that you consider fake; even if it’s demonstrably true, or barely news at all.
“Here at the #FakeNewsSquad, our motto is ‘real until proven fake’ so don’t hold back for the sake of petty things like logic or common sense or sounding like a sane person,” Pan Jie said.
“Together, we can prove that Shanmugam and Charles Chong are in fact the same person,” he added.
